“For the growers that had potatoes, it will be a decent year,” says Paul Dolan, the manager of Associated Potato Growers, Inc., a potato-packing co-op in the Red River Valley of eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota
Heavy rain and muddy fields left an impact on production this year for many farmers in Red River Valley for their 2016 crop. The weather left fields muddy, keeping even the toughest field equipment from working the fields.
Dolan said, after many potatoes were entombed in the mud for a certain length of time, the quality was beyond hope and the potatoes were simply left in the field.
On the other hand, in the Grand Forks, N.D., growing area to the south, the losses weren’t as bad. Dolan says Associated’s major packing shed in Grand Forks will be shipping potatoes until June.
To the north, growers working with Associated’s two smaller plants in Grafton and Drayton, N.D., have about half a crop. “They will finish early,” he says.
“The movement is so slow,” he added. “There is a tremendous amount of cheap russets on the market. That is hurting red movement … The movement has been slower than normal by quite a bit. Our movement is 70 percent of normal. But it’s been a little better this week.”
Because Red River Valley potato stocks as a whole are below normal, “we are not alarmed by slow movement,” Dolan says. “If this movement had come with last year’s [large] crop, we would have been in serious trouble.”
This shipping year, Associated Potato Growers “will do okay” on its profits. But Dolan emphasizes that Associated is all about the growers it represents and “those with potatoes will do all right. But those who left them in the ground won’t get much money.”
source: potatogrower.com
