Maine potato industry eyes long-term vitality

PRESQUE ISLE – The checks are in the mail to growers who participated in a state program to dispose of an overabundance of potatoes in an environmentally safe way, Maine Potato Board officials announced.

At the same time, state and federal representatives are pushing for additional measures to secure the long-term vitality of the industry.

Don Flannery, the board’s executive director, said at a meeting Friday that farmers who participated in the disposal program should see checks early this week.

The program pushed for the proper dumping of unmarketable crop in order to prevent blight and other diseases that could spread to nearby fields and cripple the industry. Flannery said 136 growers received compensation under the initiative.

“Every grower that signed up and documented that they disposed of the potatoes in a proper manner got something to help them,” Flannery said. “Everyone got some level of support.”

It has been an arduous year for the industry in Maine, and growers of table stock potatoes were especially taxed by an excess of product and a scarcity of storage space. Flannery said that the $750,000 earmarked for the program was prorated so that more growers could receive compensation.

Addressing the long-term fitness of the industry, Agriculture Commissioner Robert Spear released a letter to growers detailing comments received during workshops by his department over the past four years.

Spear outlined such goals as creating a database of wholesale buyers of produce, which could be used to schedule events to pair buyers and farmers.

The commissioner also said that officials were looking to further fund facilities that would help small operators increase production.

At a stop in Fort Fairfield during the Maine Potato Blossom Festival on Saturday, 2nd District U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud recognized issues plaguing the potato industry.

The congressman said that he had recently introduced legislation that, if passed, would create a Northeast Regional Development Commission and charge Congress with dedicating $40 million a year in federal resources for economic development, reducing poverty and improving the quality of life in the area.

“We have to do whatever we can to maintain what we have,” Michaud said Saturday. “But we also need to grow, and the money could be used by farmers for marketing potatoes here and overseas, and for irrigation needs.”

Michaud cited the national trend toward creating entities focused on regional economic development as a catalyst for introducing the proposal. “It seems to be everywhere else but here,” the congressman said. “We need something like that to focus on the needs of the Northeast.”