National Agriculture Award. NativaLand Distinguished in the “New Projects” Category

National Agriculture Award. NativaLand Distinguished in the "New Projects" Category

The growth of the sweet potato market in Europe in recent years has been very high, with an annual growth rate exceeding 12%*, with total consumption reaching more than 300,000 tons* in 2017. This growth is expected to continue in the coming years, since per capita consumption in Europe is still much lower than in the United States.

The growing awareness among European consumers of the nutritional and health benefits of sweet potatoes, as well as the development of different varieties, colors and flavors of sweet potatoes and their diverse applications (culinary and industrial), explain this growth in the sweet potato market, considered by many to be a "superfood".

One of the reasons why European consumption is satisfied mainly through imports is that European farmers do not have access to quality and diversified plants that would ensure better sweet potato production.

NativaLand is a company created at the end of 2016 to meet the needs of European producers, focused on supplying virus-free, generation 1, high-quality sweet potato plants to farmers across Europe, and is owned 50-50 by Orientempo, S.A. and Beotanics Ltd.

Orientempo is a Portuguese entrepreneurial group with investments in agriculture, media, real estate and tourism. Beotanics Ltd is an Irish company founded by Patrick FitzGerald, who has been involved for many years in innovating in genetic selection, multiplication and propagation of plants, including sweet potatoes.

To this end, NativaLand has built a large European Sweet Potato Plant Production Center in Portugal, in one of its regions best known for agriculture, Ribatejo, more precisely in Muge, 65 km northeast of Lisbon, from which it is already developing, testing, producing and exporting sweet potato plants to farmers throughout Europe.

The NativaLand project will contribute significantly to the growth of sweet potato production in Europe and to increasing the satisfaction of European consumers, who value local products and a more diversified supply.

The National Agriculture Award for New Projects 2017 was awarded to Nativa Land on March 1, at a ceremony in Lisbon attended by the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development, Luís Capoulas Santos, and the main players in Portuguese agriculture.

(*) – Based on NativaLand estimates

Source: Voz do Campo