News Release

New company sets meetings to outline plan for managing surplus potatoes

BLACKFOOT, ID — Potato Management Company (PMC) officials have scheduled two special meetings to outline their plan for managing the huge potato surplus that exists in the Pacific Northwest. PMC will meet with Idaho growers, shippers and other potato industry representatives a 1 p.m. Wednesday, December 27 at the Shilo Inn, Idaho Falls, and at 2 p.m. on Wednesday January 10 at the Burley Inn, Burley. All industry representatives and the media are welcome to attend. A meeting in the Columbia Basin will be announced very soon.

Gale Harding, Madison County Extension Agent, will provide a slide presentation on disposing potatoes and fertilizer value of potatoes. The surplus potatoes in Idaho, Oregon and Washington are acting like a wet blanket over the potato market. Growers are currently receiving about 1 cent per pound when it costs 5 cents per pound to produce potatoes. When combined, the three Pacific Northwest states have about 30 million-hundredweight more in storage now than there were last year. Analysts estimate that at least half of the surplus will have no market at any price. What created this surplus? A combination of too many acres planted an exceptionally mild growing season, and various technological advances that have helped boost yields.

The PMC plan is to purchase the surplus from growers and dispose of it in order to even the supply / demand equation and create a market with positive fundamentals. It will take the cooperation of the entire industry in these three states to accomplish this goal. Some of the potatoes will be donated to various charitable organizations, but most will be spread on fields in order to realize fertilizer benefits. Charitable organizations are strongly encouraged to contact PMC. By working together to get rid of the surplus potatoes, we will create a market for the balance of the crop and in turn save Idaho farms and businesses.

In addition, disposing of the surplus now during the cold winter months will avert environmental problems resulting from rotting potatoes this spring and summer.

The following growers and grower / shippers have signed on as incorporaters for the new company: Mike Telford, Paul, Blair Walker, Menan, Wayne Jensen, Idaho Falls, Scott Searle, Shelley, and Carl Reynolds, Boise. Board members from Idaho, Oregon, Washington and possibly other states will be added in the near future.