News on Potato Stats, Trade, Prices from Australia

Prices for potato crops grown for Simplot's north-west Tasmanian factory are set to rise by AU$20 a tonne.

The Australian vegetable and potato industries are calling for consumers to be given certainty about the food they are eating once-and-for-all, through refined Country of Origin Labelling (CoOL) laws, according to AUSVEG.

Claims New Zealand potatoes do not pose a “substantive risk” to the Australian industry have been slammed as irresponsible and reckless by AUSVEG.

Simplot processing potato farmers in Tasmania have accepted a $10 per tonne price cut for crops deliverable in 2014.

Victorian potato growers will face fewer quarantine restrictions when selling their potatoes interstate.

A recent study by Roy Morgan Research shows that potato chips are still Australia’s most popular snack food, with a third of Australians aged 14+ in the year to March 2013 buying the product in an average four-week period.

Several Tasmanian potato growers whose contracts were cancelled by McCain last year have rejected new contract offers from the company.

Potato growers In Australia have been forced to wait longer for the outcome from an inquiry of the Australian Senate into New Zealand potato imports after the report release date was further delayed.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has authorised the South East Potato Growers Association and the Victorian Potato Growers Council and their members to collectively bargain with potato buyers.

AUSVEG CEO Richard Mulcahy today said that an Inquiry held this morning by the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee is validation of concerns raised by AUSVEG about the biosecurity risks to the Australian potato industry of fresh p...

The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) of the Australian Government has released a new statement on October 4 regarding the heavily contested proposal (e.g. by AUSVEG) regarding import of potatoes from New Zealand

A Senate Inquiry into the importation of fresh potatoes from New Zealand has been praised by the Australian horticulture industry. Last week, Senators Colbeck, Xenophon, Nash, Madigan and McKenzie moved that the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transpor...

Furious Tasmanian farmers have warned that the state's potato industry faces ruin if New Zealand imports are allowed.

A cartoon portraying Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard and senior ministers as children playing a video game has been launched by the potato industry as part of its war to block imports of New Zealand potatoes.

Simplot Australia managing director Terry O'Brien has nominated a floor price Tasmanian potato farmers may have to accept to continue growing for the food processor. Speaking after the company announced the results of price negotiations with potato gr...

Simplot's Tasmanian processing potato prices have been cut by 11 per cent and contracts reduced by around 30,000 tonnes.

AUSVEG has “wrongly accused” the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) of basing quarantine conditions on outdated information, and of avoiding accountability, says DAFF.

Potatoes New Zealand has welcomed an Australian Government draft report which is expected to open the door to the export of fresh potatoes for processing from New Zealand to Australia.