“Our Biggest Competitor Is Farm-Saved Seed”: Agrico Lays Out Its Formula for Building Potato Sectors
There is no standard recipe for developing a strong potato sector, says Michel de Bruin of Dutch cooperative Agrico: quality seed is only the starting point, and the real work lies in farmer knowledge, functioning markets, enabling regulation — and the flexibility to adapt as conditions change.
Working across markets with very different production systems, regulations and levels of development, Agrico’s Business Innovation & Development Manager Michel de Bruin has reached an unfashionable conclusion: high-quality planting material, on its own, determines almost nothing. Crop management, available inputs, weather, market access and the price the farmer receives all shape the final result — which is why the Dutch cooperative increasingly approaches emerging markets with a value-chain perspective rather than a seed-sales perspective.
Agrico, a cooperative of potato growers, develops and markets varieties and produces seed potatoes for retail, French fry, crisp and starch segments. Through its international network it is active in more than 80 countries. Yet in many of those markets the formal sector for certified seed remains small, and Agrico’s real rival is not another international seed house. “Our biggest competitor is farm-saved seed,” de Bruin says — which reframes the commercial task from winning market share to growing the market itself.
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The economic case, he argues, is what converts farmers. Reusing planting material looks cheap until productivity, labour and other production costs enter the calculation. Better planting material, suitable varieties and stronger crop management can lift yields and cut the cost per kilogram. De Bruin offers a striking illustration: raising productivity from six tonnes per hectare to 36 tonnes per hectare means producing the same volume with less land, water and other resources — strengthening financial and environmental sustainability at once. He is careful to add that quality seed alone cannot deliver those results; Agrico therefore works with other private companies, governments and public organisations, including commercial competitors.
The Kenya operation illustrates the “local for local” model. Agrico Potato Services Africa produces certified seed potatoes in Nakuru County while training farmers in crop management and profitable production — developing potato production for local and regional markets rather than treating emerging markets as destinations for Dutch exports.
De Bruin frames sector development through three interconnected elements. Production covers varieties, seed quality, multiplication and cultivation knowledge. The market requires demand, distribution and a viable business case for farmers and other value-chain actors. The enabling environment — import rules, certification, plant breeders’ rights — determines which varieties and systems can operate at all. Agrico’s role sits primarily in practical market development and implementation: introducing varieties, making planting material available, sharing knowledge, and assessing whether an intervention can survive beyond a pilot.
That practicality comes with a warning against rigidity. De Bruin describes many of Agrico’s markets as volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, and his answer is terse: “The only way to respond to volatility is flexibility.” Programmes designed too rigidly struggle when developments move faster than planning cycles — a critique aimed as much at development programmes as at companies.
The systems view also explains Agrico’s interest in SeedNL, the platform where private-sector experience, public ambitions and seed-sector expertise meet. De Bruin sees value in “channeling” different perspectives — companies contribute commercial and implementation experience, public organisations bring capabilities individual firms lack, and bringing them together can expose unintended consequences before decisions are implemented.
Meanwhile the cooperative is investing in the genetics that underpin the whole argument. Agrico Research in Bant is undergoing a major redevelopment with around €15 million invested in new and expanded facilities — described as the largest investment in the cooperative’s history, with an official opening planned for November 2026. The two levels of the strategy are visible at once: improving the genetics and planting material available to farmers, while acknowledging their value ultimately depends on the wider system in which they are used.
