PRESQUE ISLE – Aroostook County potato growers are starting to plan the new season and the new crops, and some are deciding not to plant in 2005 after two disastrous years.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency is working with growers who need assistance and paying some growers for disastrous losses that occurred in 2003 and 2004.

As of last week, the farm service had paid Maine farmers – mostly potato growers, but also blueberry and strawberry growers – approximately $4 million in disaster relief funds from the USDA. The amount is expected to reach $6 million.

“Some folks are really up against [the wall],” David Lavway of the farm service said Monday. “We’ve been there before.

“This kind of talk happens each April, but when the dust starts flying, you will stop hearing the talk,” he said. “We will lose some growers, no doubt.”

Aroostook County potato growers had dumped potatoes in 2003, and many dumped potatoes in 2004. Several farms have piles in back fields where truckload after truckload of potatoes have been dumped.

Lavway said the farm service started accepting applications for disaster payments on March 14 and was making payments on some of those by March 29. It still is taking applications, and there are some that are going through the application review and farm inspection process.

The most a grower can get is $80,000. An operation where the husband and wife are involved is eligible for up to $160,000.

Lavway said good potato growers dumping potatoes is a very discouraging prospect.

“There’s a lot of pride in growing good potatoes,” he said. “There is nothing more discouraging than having a [potato storage] house that is melting down.”

In order to receive disaster funds, growers have to prove a 35 percent crop loss or 20 percent market price loss to be eligible, and growers must choose one loss year.

“Dumped potatoes are 100 percent price loss,” Lavway said.

He said losses can come from weather-related diseases such as late blight, pink rot, powdery scab and hollow heart, which was extensive in the Yukon Gold variety in 2003.

The farm service started working on its disaster program last fall.

Growers found out quickly that potatoes were going bad. Some were hauling their crops out of storage within two or three weeks last October.

“The payments are not a windfall to growers,” Lavway said. “Maine farms have been declared a disaster area.”

That also allows farmers to become eligible for emergency loan money to put a new crop in the ground this spring.

Lavway knows some growers will have trouble getting into the ground this spring.

“Some have nowhere else to go,” he said. “Some will get done by choice because they don’t want to give up more of their security – like their homes.”