Brazil is a large country with vast areas of good agricultural land only used for grazing at this point. Potatoes are grown in the higher altitudes of Brazil for the cooler growing conditions. Potatoes are somewhat adapted to the acid soils prevalent in Brazil that restrict some crops.
Brazilian countryside in central Brazil and a potato field.
Brazil seams to be a maturing market for fresh market potatoes with very high quality smooth skinned yellow flesh potatoes being the market norm. This area of varieties is an area where US growers have just recently entered. Thus we are behind the scale in variety development in this area. The Dutch have many, many years experience in this market and have some varieties that we can’t even come close to matching at the present. Agata and Cupid are popular and excellent quality. If the quality demands of the market weren’t so high we might have more of an opening. Increasing the US breeders knowledge of the export market variety needs can only help this situation in the future.
The Chipping market is much more dynamic because of past misstates by Frito lay which lead to their losing market share to many growing independent chippers. This is an opportunity to grab now because Frito lay will regroup and try to re concur this market. The US has good alternative chipping varieties. Some are registered and some in variety trials. The seed market for these varieties will probably be very low generation because of disease pressure locally.
Seed market: Variety protection in Brazil seams very weakly controlled if at all. Disease pressure from viruses is very heavy in Brazil which is almost impossible to control except by getting new young seed often. Many large growers were using or installing facilities to produce their own Minitubers and grow seed for only 1 to 3 generations. Disease resistant varieties like Agata can be regrown for more years, but varieties like Atlantic (chipper) get infected fast. We saws fields of G1 Atlantics that were already full of virus contamination which will reduce yields. This disease pressure ensures a good seed market opportunity for low generation seed or minitubers. In vitro labs seam few and the only way to control a variety seams to work with these labs. In any case the seed import market seams to be only minitubers and nuclear to G1 seed. This can be a positive factor as profit margins are greater at this level for US seed producers and there is less risk growing “Brazil only” varieties with the smaller acreage at these lower generations. Some minituber and seed growers are struggling lately with the cutback in US potato acres. New export markets are the only way to solve this problem.
Varieties: In Brazil a variety needs to undergo three years (?) Of trials in multiple areas before its registered. The registration process is set up to favor private companies so our public breeder organizations face increase bureaucratic problems. Registering a variety is expensive and should only be done with varieties with potential. The Dutch sneak new varieties for trails in existing seed shipments so they evaluate potential before registering. We can and should do informal trials of new fresh market potatoes with local interested growers to help identify any new hopeful varieties. We need to emphasize chip varieties as the market is there for us to capture. Chipeta, Megachip, Calwhite, Dakotah Pearl and Dakotah Crisp are promising varieties. For fresh market there are some experimental possibilities. The advantage of Calwhite is it’s a dual purpose variety for chip/fresh market. A further complication is one needs US production of these varieties. The chip market in the US is dominated by Frito lay so the seed acres are mostly controlled by Frito lay. Chip seed growers might really welcome some options that don’t include Frito seed.
The Fresh market seller do a excellent job of cleaning and polishing up their already good looking potatoes for a fresh market product I wish I could duplicate in this country.
In summary, we need to test new varieties first with local marketers and not just register any variety. The fresh market will be hard to break into at the present, but the chip market is ripe for our entry. Bureaucratic problems in registering varieties will be tough without local help. Brazil is a mature market hard, but still possible to enter. Local expertise in seed growing leads to sales of seed at very low generation, but very high local virus disease pressure ensure that new seed will always be needed.
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