Canadá: Spud producers pull off second record crop

Manitoba potato growers harvested, on average, a record 348 hundredweight (cwt) an acre this fall, up eight per cent from the previous record of 322 cwt set last year.

However, it’s not all good news, Keystone Potato Growers Association manager Dan Sawat­zky told the Keystone Agricultural Producers’ advisory council Nov. 3.

“We are struggling to find a home currently for about a million bags of surplus,” Sawatzky said.

“Hopefully something opens up down the road. Right now it’s not looking much like there will be an opportunity to market, but you never know how things will develop over the winter.”

Most processing potato farmers contract their production before the crop is planted in spring.

Read more: Sweet potatoes may enter Manitoba rotations

This year Manitoba growers planted 64,825 acres of potatoes and harvested 62,860 acres, Sawatzky said.

“We left more in the ground this year than we have for a number of years for two reasons,” he said. “Some areas were flooded out during the season (mostly east and south of Winkler) and a little over two per cent probably was left because there was no place to put them. In spite of acreage being abandoned, we still had excess production.”

Some farmers also left potatoes undug because they were only being offered $4 a bag, Sawatzky said later in an interview.

“No one likes to see food wasted,” he added.

Meanwhile, late blight is showing up in some stored potatoes, which puts them at risk of rotting, despite farmers having sprayed their fields with fungicides to protect against the disease and also treating tubers going into storage.

On top of all that, potato prices are low.

“On pricing we continue to remain below 2009 levels,” Sawatzky said. “In spite of the great crop there are still pockets of not everyone being optimistic about the business. There continues to be focus on moving some of the risk back onto the producer. The latest discussions have been all around food safety and foreign material and putting more onus on the grower.”

Harvest went well this year, with most fields dug by the beginning of October, Sawatzky said. The exceptions were along Highway 2 and other areas where there was a bumper crop, which took longer to harvest.