‘Go on the offensive’

Professor Ruud Huirne is director of the renowned Agricultural Economics Research Institute (LEI) of the Wageningen University and Research Center (WUR). At the end of 2009, at the Potato Demonstration Day Conference, he spoke in his capacity of an agricultural economist on the subject of ‘crisis phenomena in the potato sector.’ Today, one year later, the situation is quite the opposite. Prices are good, but the income disparities are yet again enormous. In Huirne’s view there is only one remedy: ‘Go on the offensive. If we don’t do anything and keep anxiously waiting, we will certainly lose our leading position.’