“We had more potatoes last year than this year,” said Frank Muir, CEO of the Idaho Potato Commission. “This sets us up well to have good prices for our growers. Prices started out higher this year than last year, and I think that trend will continue throughout the year.” Those prices are a result of less volume this year on account of fewer planted acres throughout the state. Weather conditions were good throughout the harvest, which ran from July through October, and that contributed to increased productivity.
“Even with some heat issues, yields were up this year,” said Muir. “Growers harvested more potatoes per acre, so even though there were fewer acres harvested, our yields were up.” Last year's harvested acres reached 342,000 acres, up 23,000 acres from the previous year, and this year's acreage fell to 315,000 acres. Muir chalks up the drop to adjustments on the part of growers to find a good medium between too much product, which would lead to lower prices, and not enough production to satisfy demand.
“We probably had more acres than we needed last year,” said Muir. “So growers stabilized down to what's more of a right-sized crop.” The drop in production, estimated at around six percent from last year, didn't affect quality, as Muir noted that sizing has been better than in previous years.
“Quality looks excellent,” said Muir. “The percentage of potatoes that are number one, which means they are a minimum of two inches, is up from 80.9 percent last year to 82.4 percent this year.”
For more information:
Frank Muir
Idaho Potato Commission
+1 208 334 2350