News on The Potato Supply Chain from Oceania

A new potato variety will be appearing on retail shelves in Australia, Asia and the Middle East in coming months from the South Australian Potato Company

McCain Tasmanian potato growers supplying McCain have agreed on a price cut of $26.50 per tonne for this season.

Full scale local potato production in Fiji will become a reality in three years' time, according to permanent secretary for Agriculture Colonel Mason Smith.

Potato growers in the Ballarat region (South Australia) are continuing negotiations over pricing for the next harvest with the food processor McCain.

After a battle lasting almost 25 years, Western Australia's $45 million potato industry has been declared free of the devastating potato cyst nematode (PCN).

Another price cut in a contract settled yesterday between South East potato growers and major potato-processing company McCain Foods Australia has threatened to wipe-out the industry if the downturn continues, according to potato producers in the region.

It has been bred by Plant & Food Research and it has a smooth deep purple skin with purple and white flesh.

In New South Wales, Australia, Matt Simmons can barely keep up with demand for the organic potatoes he and wife Sue grow on their 48-hectare farm on the Hawkesbury River.

AUSVEG CEO Richard Mulcahy said today that diseased potatoes had the potential to threaten the viability of the entire Australian potato industry if the Australian Federal Government allows potatoes to be imported for processing from New Zealand.

The lack of rain in the Kavanagasau area on Fiji has affected potato farms in the area and many farmers fear losing their crops. A Kavanagasau farmer Jagar Nadan Naidu says they have requested for water pumps from the Agriculture Department.Naidu says ...

Potato growers who supply Simplot Australia’s Ulverstone potato processing plant have put their case for a four per cent price increase for the 2010/11 growing season, the equivalent of another $13 a tonne. Simplot has yet to respond to the growers’ p...

FIJI will soon be reducing the amount of potatoes imported into the country if a potato planting scheme introduced yesterday becomes successful.And chips manufacturer Flour Mills of Fiji has assured it would work closely with farmers to use the locally...

Australian scientists at SARDI are making major strides in diagnosing potato diseases before the potato crop is planted.Watch ABC video on this topicAustralia’s $500 million-plus potato industry will benefit from new DNA tests that can quickly and accu...

Potato growers across Australia have been urged to protect the local industry from a major pest which has established itself in New Zealand. New Zealand potato producers have been coming to terms with the disease Zebra chip. The disease is seen as...

McCain Foods has told growers in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania it requires 10 per cent less potatoes for the 2010-11 season and wants to cut the price by AU$45 per tonne. A meeting of potato growers at Ballarat last week angrily rejected Mc...

Potato growers in the Moorabool region (Australia, near McCain Foods Ballarat factory) say they could be forced out of business after McCain Foods planned a AU$45 a tonne price cut next season.   With McCain’s tonnage also set to be reduced by 10 per c...

A newly discovered ability for people to taste fat could hold the key to reducing obesity, Deakin University health researchers believe.   Deakin researchers Dr Russell Keast and PhD student Jessica Stewart, working with colleagues at the University o...

AUSVEG Chairman, John Brent, today expressed dismay at the lack of Australian representation at the Fruit Logistica Trade Fair just concluded in Berlin and called on Australia’s political leaders to place more emphasis on the agricultural industry and ...