Potato farmers request $750,000 to protect crops

AUGUSTA – Sitting in bunkers, silos and potato houses scattered throughout Aroostook County are 180 million pounds of spuds left over from last year – a full 10 percent of Maine’s total table stock production.

Farmers and industry leaders testified Wednesday before the Legislature’s Appropriations’ Committee that if the state doesn’t help by providing $750,000 for disposal costs, the entire industry is at risk.

Left over from the worst potato season in a quarter of a century, those potatoes are just waiting to become a breeding ground for late blight, a disease that cost the potato industry $40 million in the mid-1990s.

“The entire 2004 crop could be at risk,” said Donald Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board.

Because of a downturn in the national market combined with increased rainfall during the growing season and last fall’s harvest, Maine’s potato growers were left this winter with 4,000 tractor-trailer loads of surplus spuds. Many of them were of poor quality because of the excessively wet harvest conditions.

Daniel LaBrie, a potato farmer from St. Agatha, said he had 20 inches of rain in his field in July. “Our revenues were 40 percent of what they should have been,” said LaBrie. “Table stock potatoes are not contracted. They are at the mercy of the market. On our farm, we pack 10 loads a week when it’s brisk. Two a week was the norm this year.”

LaBrie said that without the financial appropriation, potato farms will fail. “The infrastructure of Aroostook County can no longer sustain losing growers,” said LaBrie. “If you don’t help, I’ll have to go to Canada to buy my trucks, to get repairs. There will be nothing left in The County.”

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service awarded Maine $750,000 to help dispose of the unmarketable potatoes. But that only covered costs to get rid of about half the problem.

LD 1937, which the farmers testified in favor of Wednesday, asks for a state appropriation of another $750,000.

Seth Bradstreet III, a Newport potato farmer, likened the potato industry to a mill with 6,000 employees that pumps $540 million into Maine’s economy each year.

“There would be no question of helping such a business,” he said.

Bradstreet said the 1995 late blight crisis was caused by one pile of cull potatoes that had been improperly disposed of. “We need to protect the 2004 crop,” he said.

Several seed potato growers also testified, stating that if late blight hits Maine, it will also destroy their businesses. They said potato farmers are not making a profit and cannot afford to pay disposal costs themselves.

Another county farmer estimated the rate of return at $350 per acre, while it costs $1,800 an acre to produce potatoes.

To put the profit situation in perspective, one farmer said that when McDonald’s sells a packet of french fries, the state of Maine gets three times in taxes what the farmer gets for the potatoes.

To help the industry nationally, the U.S. Potato Bard is spending $4 million on an 18-month campaign to convince Americans that the high-carbohydrate, starchy vegetable is a healthful food choice, rather than one that’s widening their hips.

“We like the potato,” says Dr. George L. Blackburn, associate director of the nutrition division at Harvard Medical School, whose endorsement of potatoes appears in one of the campaign’s ads.

He’s not just saying that: Blackburn eats five baked potatoes a week.

The high-protein, low-carbohydrate craze hasn’t been easy on the spud. To growers’ dismay, potato consumption is down, along with that of rice, pasta and cereal. More than 17 percent of American households report that they have someone on a low-carb diet.