Potato growers plug away at planting crop

PRESQUE ISLE – Despite a devastating season last year, northern Maine potato growers Monday were going full tilt planting this year’s crop.

Acreage is expected to be down by 3,000 acres in Aroostook County to 63,000 acres. Officials are expecting fewer growers as well, not necessarily because of the devastating year, but because a few farmers think it is time to get out of the business.

Potato sales, especially for table stock growers, have been poor.

“We started a bit on Saturday, and we going full bore today,” Daniel Labrie, who has been growing potatoes for more than three decades, said Monday. “It’s pretty much the same through the [St. John] Valley.

“Growing russets, we need all the growing days we can get,” he said. “Field conditions seem OK but some farms still have frost in the ground.” Labrie said exposed fields, especially those windswept with little snow cover, sustained frost eight feet deep. “It’s early, but we are taking every single advantage we can get.”

He said the industry will lose some growers. For some, said the veteran, it’s solely financial. He explained that some growers are tired of taking money from their sideline operations to use to support the farm.

Don Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board said central and southern Maine, and southern areas of Aroostook County were going last week and before. He suspected Monday that the rest of Aroostook County will get into the fields this week.

He doesn’t expect a large number of growers to be leaving the industry, but some will. The biggest change, he said, will be the number of acres planted.

“We are looking at decreased acreage, as are most parts of the country,” Flannery said. “We potentially could be down as much as 3,000 acres.”

He described the past season as “disastrous, very devastating.”

“For uncontracted potatoes [those sold on the open market], it was probably the worst year we ever saw,” Flannery said. “It may not have been the worst prices ever, but we’ve never seen those prices with no demand.”

As always, Flannery said, Canadian potatoes impacted the markets. However, Canadian shipments were down as much as Maine shipments were, he explained. Better Canadian exchange rates helped American farmers a bit.

He said New Brunswick shipments to New England markets were down 18 percent, and Prince Edward Island shipments were down 44 percent.

The Canadian impact on this industry has been felt for 50 years or more, he said. It continued in the east, he said, and broadened in western markets where there was a large influx of potatoes.

He said complaints about Canadian potato imports were more prevalent this season because it was a disastrous selling season to begin with.