Europatat is part of an international consortium involved in the ADAPT research project (“Accelerated Development of multiple-stress tolerAnt PoTato”). This project aims to develop new strategies to make potatoes fit for the challenging growth conditions of the future.
It started in July 2020 and will take place over the next three years, with a total budget of €5 million, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.
The needs of potato growers are of fundamental interest for the researchers, industrial partners and breeders involved in the project. In an online survey, ADAPT asked for the farmers’ perception of climate change, their experiences concerning its impact on potato production, and their need for adapted potato varieties.
In total, the survey’s responsible ADAPT partner, the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), received 553 replies, of which most were from farmers with potato production locations in Austria, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland, Slovenia, Belgium, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Remarkably, almost 90% of the survey respondents indicated that changes in climatic conditions had affected their potato production in the last 10 years. Moreover, almost 50% defined climatic changes as a threat to maintain potato production at their farms!
Source: europatat.eu
