By Ewan Pate, farming editor

IT IS well over a decade since potato quotas featured in the life of the potato industry but they are alive and well in one part of the European Union.

Delegates to the British Potato Council seed event at Crieff this week heard that growers in Northern France use them to control the acreage of “free” varieties.

These are the varieties not under the control of breeders or their agents.

It is the erratic fluctuations in the acreage of these potato crops that often destabilises the whole seed market.

Yves Begue is the director of Comite Nord, which represents 17 syndicates of seed potato growers operating in a great arc from Normandy round to the north and east of Paris.

Not only do French farming organisations have incredibly complicated structures, but their representatives invariably have a compulsion to explain how they operate in the greatest detail.

It may well be designed to create an impenetrable screen to deter prying eyes from the rest of the EU.

The French systems, however, do seem to work in the favour of the nation’s farmers.

Mr Begue explained that the central committee at Comite Nord works with breeders and marketing experts to estimate the acreage of each variety which should be grown in any given year.

These areas are then expressed as a quota and allocated to individual farmers.

“These are self-determined quotas, but if any grower does not respect them he is dead,” said Mr Begue darkly.

“He will never grow potatoes in Northern France again.”

This conjured up a picture of the hapless grower floating face downwards in the Seine as he headed for the sea.

In fact, the punishment was less drastic and in the hands of the president of Comite Nord who would make sure that the grower was not supplied with basic seed and wasn’t offered contracts.

He even suggested that government departments would make life difficult for anyone who didn’t comply. “They will put the pressure on with inspections and taxes and so on,” he said.

It may be the French way of doing things but it certainly does not apply to Scotland where there is very little control over the growing of “free” varieties.

This means that in too many years there is insufficient profit and in the view of seed grower Mike Cumming, “It is simply not sustainable.”

Mr Cumming has been manager at Lour Farms, Ladenford, Forfar, since 1991, handling 2000 acres of arable and grass, including 200 acres of seed potatoes.

The potatoes are split equally between controlled and free varieties.

Of the latter, the most important and the one which he focused on at the conference was Desiree and its place in the North African export market.

His central thesis is that there is not so much overproduction of seed, but “over-representation,” with too many merchants with committed tonnages desperate to clear the stock at a price which would leave them a margin but leave insufficient return for the grower.

“My current costings demonstrate a £130-per-tonne break even price,” he said.

“The Desiree average over the last five years has been £114 per tonne, with the poorest price £80 per tonne in 2004 and the best £154 in 2001.

“That was the only year we made a real profit.

“I think that the single farm payment regime is making growers more aware of true costings.

“Potato enterprises may generate small cash surpluses but insufficient returns to cover depreciation costs and future investment.

“Five years with no surplus for investment is not standing still, it is going backwards.”

Mr Cumming saw a number of factors influencing the 78,000 tonnes of seed exported from Scotland.

“There have been changes in the merchant chain, with fewer actively growing potatoes,” he said.

“There has been a rise in the popularity of sales pools, which have really replaced the tonnage once grown by merchants themselves. However, it means they have a captive tonnage which they fear being left with.

“Growers also have a responsibility, because many keep back a tonnage from the pools to sell on the open market and more than one merchant may be trying to sell the same tonnage.

“This all adds up to over-representation and presents buyers with an opportunity to exploit our weaknesses.”

These weaknesses had been particularly evident in 2005 when all reputable data had indicated that the supply and demand balance across Europe was in the growers’ favour but returns were once again below the cost of production.

“Why did our trading advantage dissipate?” asked Mr Cumming.

He suggested several ways forward, saying growers should only support merchants with a long-term interest in Scottish seed production and a proven record of transparency.

Alternatives to pool pricing structures should be considered but there should be some other method of “reciprocal loyalty.”

He continued, “Creating effective marketing plans whilst reducing the tonnage available to speculators would be easier to achieve with a reduction in the number of Desiree sellers.

“Could the formation of export grower groups working with a chosen trading partner be one solution to this?”

The question was allowed to hang in the air as the delegates considered the implications.

The seed potato industry may be notorious for playing its cards close to its chest but Mr Cumming had at least planted some serious seeds for thought.