Producers in Castilla y León will end planting potatoes at the end of April. There is no official data about the area planted but expectations are that it will remain as in the previous campaign when some 16,600 hectares were cultivated.
According to Eduardo Arroyo, president of Appacyl (Association of Potato Producers of Castilla y León), "The planting has advanced a lot but it's too tight; producers have sown potatoes at the beginning of March, when the logical thing was to plant them in the middle or end of the month so what is sown today is the same as it was at the end of March, i.e. between 70 and 80% of the surface." This means there could be some accumulation of potatoes in the campaign due to the lack of staging in the sowing.
Yolanda Medina, president of the Patata de Castilla y León inter-branch organization agreed with Arroyo, indicating that "60% of the potato in the region was planted in three weeks." "The trend is to have short cycles because of the cost of irrigation, so we see more early varieties and an increase in the Agria variety in later varieties."
The inter-branch organization will no longer carry out a European project due to a lack of funds of its own
The Patata de Castilla y León inter-branch organization will no longer carry out a European project for the promotion of this crop endowed with 1,275,000 euro.
After competing with initiatives from other countries and going through a complex selection process, the association was awarded the concession of this project whose objective was to promote the consumption of potatoes that have a different external look than they did a series of years ago because of climate issues.
The European funds, however, only finance 70% of the project and the remaining 30% should come from the association itself. "The association voted not to move forward with this project without having that 30% of the financing, so we rejected it," stated Yolanda Medina.
"We're missing a golden opportunity to convey how good our potatoes are, to create awareness of climate issues and how they influence the product externally," she added.
Source: leonoticias.com