A global vegetable par excellence, it is grown in 160 countries over an area of 18 million hectares.

It is the third most cultivated species on the planet, with 5,000 varieties in 160 countries around the world. We are talking about the potato, the flagship product of Macfrut 2025, the international fruit and vegetable supply chain fair scheduled from Tuesday 6 to Thursday 8 May at the Rimini Expo Centre. A truly global product grown on an area of 18 million hectares, the Potato at the fair will be at the centre of an international event that will attract top operators and technicians for a 360-degree in-depth analysis. Coordinated by Luciano Trentini , Macfrut 2025 will host The International Potato Symposium, structured over several days with in-depth sessions on technical, agronomic and market issues and visits to exhibiting companies, together with international operators, global stakeholders and top researchers in the sector.

“Macfrut is the most important trade fair in the sector,” explains Trentini , “it allows Italian and foreign visitors to have a complete vision of fruit and vegetable cultivation. And a supply chain journey is presented in the next edition of the event, in which the potato will be the protagonist from the exhibition phase to the conference phase and the commercial phase, and visitors and technicians will be able to find answers together with international operators, global stakeholders and the leading researchers in the sector. We are talking about a global product, as it is the third most cultivated species in the agricultural sector (behind only wheat and rice), which plays a very important role if we also consider its environmental value. Let's take the element of water for example: researchers confirm that this solanaceous plant consumes less per unit of production. In fact, if 400/500 litres of water are needed to produce 1 kg of potatoes, more than double the quantity is needed to produce 1 kg of wheat and 4 times as much for 1 kg of rice”.

The International Potato Symposium will be structured over several days: Tuesday 6 and Wednesday 7 May will host the Symposium, while the third day of the fair will be dedicated to technical visits. “The Potato Symposium will have an international scope,” Trentini continues, “and on the first day we will discuss current issues, including: the development prospects of the sector and the analysis of the fresh market and industrial processing of potatoes. A very important session of the conference will concern the defense issues that now concern producers throughout Europe. International speakers will talk about how we can defend ourselves from wireworms, commonly called “ferretti” or how to defend ourselves from Cyperus esculentus, considered an extremely harmful weed, so much so that it has been included in the list of the most dangerous invasive species by the Eppo (European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization)”.

On the second day, commercial issues will be addressed: the trend of potato consumption, consumer preferences and how communication affects the marketing of common potatoes and those that qualify through quality brands. Another session will focus on the theme of innovation in the potato supply chain, while one of the most current topics will be related to varietal research, which the potato grower must deal with on a daily basis, given the problems that have now grown enormously due to climate change and more.