Suddenly, the Island was able to produce a crop which was in demand in the UK and which was capable of enriching not only the agricultural sector but also everyone who could provide it with goods, services and support.
Ever since that local agricultural revolution began, the Royal has been one of the mainstays of the Jersey economy, even though its importance has long been eclipsed by the finance industry. Through good times and bad, the humble new potato has proved that this tiny Island has been capable of making a major contribution in the spheres of home economics and gastronomy, an achievement to recognise anew as another season’s early crop is planted in scenes of picturesquely reassuring familiarity.
In recent years, however, the Island’s potato industry has suffered from declining demand abroad and internecine struggles at home. Cheaper alternatives in UK supermarkets have taken their toll, but so too have strife among the Island’s exporting groups, whose members have fought for market share.
The struggle between major producers and major exporters might well continue, but there is powerful evidence of a new wave of optimism in the Jersey Royal community. On two new sites vast new potato processing and handling facilities have sprung up, ventures that fly in the face of the present general mood of economic doom and gloom. It is hard to believe that these mega-sheds would have been planned and built if the future of the Royal sector was in substantial doubt.
It is, meanwhile, significant that one of the new processing complexes is being funded by an organisation based outside the Island. This might offend purists who believe that the Royal is a peculiarly and essentially insular product, but it surely reflects the present nature of all sorts of business in this modern world. Borders and artificial barriers count for little in present-day commerce.
Even if the present wave of investment in Jersey’s unique potato signals a new round of intense competition, it also provides ample proof that those who were forecasting the rapid demise of Island agriculture were a very long way wide of the mark.
