Growers Discuss Issues Facing the Industry

Brought to you by DuPont Crop Protection and the editors of Spudman Magazine.

Welcome to From the Field, a collection of informational articles about the diseases, pests and issues that affect potato growers. This first article in the series highlights issues growers are facing in all  region of the countries. Growers Ed Schneider, Dan LaBrie, Dan Moss and Don Sklarczyk discuss their major concerns for the 2006 growing season -- and the potato industry in general.

Ed Schneider, Pasco, Wash.

Schneider Farms is located near Pasco, Wash., in the Columbia Basin. The family has been farming there since 1966, and Ed has been farming actively since graduating from Washington State University in 1977.

Schneider Farms is approximately 1,700 acres, of which about 1,000 is usually devoted to potatoes. All of the farm’s production is sold to processors for french fry production. The farm also grows sweet corn for processing, timothy hay and wheat.

Dan LaBrie, St. John Valley, Maine

Dan started farming with his dad in 1966, and they farmed together until his retirement in 1980. From then on, Dan and his wife Roberta farmed alone until 1990, when their two oldest sons, Keith and Duane, graduated from college and joined the operation. A third son, Aaron, is a mechanical engineer in Oregon.

The LaBrie farm is in the middle of the St. John Valley in northern Maine. Only the St. John River separates them from the province of New Brunswick, Canada. They have about 1,200 acres, some of which is owned and some rented. Potato acreage is usually around 500, about two-thirds of which are processing varieties under contract with McCain Foods. The remaining one-third of the acreage is comprised of fresh market varieties. They raise whites, reds and yellows, as well as Russet Norkotahs for the fresh-line operation. They also raise approximately 130 acres of canola and maintain 75 acres of grass to lengthen the potato rotation. The rest of the acreage is in small grains, notably oats and barley.

Don Sklarczyk, Johannesburg, Mich.

Don Sklarczyk grew up on his parents’ farm, which they owned since 1942. On the farm, they raised crops to feed cows, pigs and chickens. The Sklarczyks also grew potatoes. When Don took over the farming operation, he decided to focus on growing seed potatoes. He sold the dairy cows and beef cattle.

In the early 1980s, Don was looking for a way to follow in his father’s footsteps to produce a better seed potato product – what previously was acceptable no longer served his customers. Don read several articles, which lead him to new technology to help reduce latent virus and symptomless bacteria in seed potatoes. He investigated several methods and found stem cutting and tissue culture to be best suited for seed potato production.

While stem cutting did not require a laboratory, its results were not as promising as tissue culture. Don and Mary Kay Sklarczyk and their children visited Ed and Barbara Jones, who had established a tissue culture laboratory and greenhouse operation for Cornell University in Lake Placid, N.Y. Barbara showed Mary Kay the correct technique of cutting tiny potato plants under the protection of a clean air station. Don returned home even more convinced that the use of tissue culture would play an important part in the future of seed potato production. At that time, the use of tissue culture in potato production was limited to three university operations east of the Rocky Mountains and a few growers in Montana.

During their first year, the Sklarczyks received 50 small potato plants in test tubes from the Joneses. Plans already were in progress to set up a tissue culture lab in Don and Mary Kay’s basement. During the next winter, Mary Kay increased the number of small potato plants in test tubes. That spring, the potato plants were placed in a greenhouse that Don had built in the back yard. Some plants also were planted in an isolated field outside.

To encourage commercial growers to use tissue-cultured seed potatoes, Don provided them with his seed potatoes. Those growers then went to their seed suppliers to see when tissue culture seed would be available. Today, the use of tissue culture is a requirement of all certification agencies in both the United States and Canada.

The Sklarczyks’ business continued to grow. They added a 30-foot by 150-foot poly-top house, which at first seemed to be too much space. But the next year, the greenhouse was completely filled. A few years later, a culture laboratory was constructed, devoted solely to seed-potato production.

The farm continued to grow. Two additional plastic-top greenhouses were added, as well as a five-bay glass-top greenhouse. Later, with the help of Frito Lay, Don began producing the seed potato crop using hydroponics. They added a building to connect all the greenhouses and provide computer-operated storage for the seed potatoes.
Experiencing success at the greenhouse part of his operation, Don decided to rent the field seed potato production facility to another farming enterprise.

Today, Don and Mary Kay’s son, Ben, has joined the farming operation as manager of the greenhouse. Brian Klein oversees plant production. In the summer, the staff at Sklarczyk Seed Farm balloons to more than two dozen.

The greenhouse produces more than 3 million units of seed potatoes each year, which are shipped throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile and the Middle East. The field operation produces wheat, soybeans, oats and alfalfa.

Dan Moss, Declo, Idaho

After growing up on a small farm in northern Utah that was being encroached upon by urban development, Dan and Jann Moss decided that if they were going to farm for a living, they needed more ground. They loaded up their young family in 1982 and settled in a small town called Declo, Idaho. They purchased 160 acres. Twenty-four years later, they farm 7,000 acres in a partnership with their son, Ryan, and his wife, Shabree. The crop mix is 3,000 acres of potatoes, 1,250 acres of sugar beets, 2,000 acres of wheat, and hay and corn for a neighboring dairy. The Mosses have multiple farms in four different counties across the state. They have two farm managers and Ryan overseeing specific farms in different regions. They start spud harvest the first week of August on their westernmost farms and work back toward Declo, finishing the first week of October. They are primarily growers of potatoes for processing, producing Shepodys, Rangers and Russet Burbanks for three fry companies. They also produce a few Norkotahs for the fresh market.

What do you think will be your biggest production challenges this year?

Schneider: The biggest production challenges in the Columbia Basin are again going to include potato tuber moth and leafhopper. These two pests have been at the front of our minds the last couple of years. This is going to require continued extensive insect trapping and scouting. We will also need to be diligent in our chemical applications when threshold levels are met.

LaBrie: I believe the biggest production challenge we face in 2006 is the outrageous cost of petroleum. Farming is energy intensive and a lot of the inputs are petroleum-based. For growers with pre-season contracts, the increased cost of production has made it extremely difficult to make ends meet. Unless processing contracts negotiated for 2006 address these increased costs of doing business, I believe that a reliable supply of quality products for the quick-service restaurants will be in jeopardy. Farming is a business and needs to provide a return on investment, just like any other business, to remain viable.

Sklarczyk: One of the largest production challenges this year will be the high cost of inputs. It is difficult for growers to pass on the true additional cost with each price increase. While it may appear the increases growers receive are adequate to cover additional cost, many times they are not enough. Growers have learned to become more efficient each year and learned how to survive on a slimmer margin. This trend cannot go on forever. This ties into one simple fact. The U.S. consumer is accustomed to having a safe, cheap food supply. With the use of new reduced risk products for crop protection, a safe food supply is much easier for a grower to achieve than the cheap food consumers have been accustomed too. Add to this the complex issue of the “middlemen” and the profit margin they demand for their handling of our product.
Grower groups like United are a step in the right direction. Let’s hope this trend will catch on to all production areas. The groundwork has been done by growers with vision, to set up systems where growers will be able to receive returns that will allow their operation to continue for the next generation.

We will be looking at new technology as a way to control cost and to provide a better product from our greenhouse operation.

What types of economic issues do you see affecting the potato industry?

Schneider: Economically, the biggest issue is definitely the effect of fuel prices. It will affect not only costs in the field but will be a bigger factor for transportation, which will cost us in increased costs for all of our inputs and increased costs for delivery of our products.

LaBrie: The biggest challenge I see for crop year 2006 is the number of potatoes planted in North America. I say North America, because what happens in Canada affects the States and what happens in the States affects Canada. If growers remember only one thing this year, it is: less is more. All growers have to take the responsibility of keeping their acres down because potato utilization is flat at best. United of America helped to reduce fresh acreage in 2005. This effort needs to be expanded to include processing acreage (fries and chips) as well as seed acres.

Moss: I think the biggest challenge that will face the spud industry in the coming years is the challenge for growers to match production with demand or consumption. History has proven that for the spud industry to be profitable, we must not over-produce.

Increased cost of production has been a topic of discussion in our company meetings this winter. To give you an example, last February we bought a tanker of farm diesel – 10,000 gallons for $12,700. By harvest, that same load of fuel cost $22,100. In 2004, it cost $151 more per acre to grow a crop of spuds than the previous year, and $223 more per acre in 2005 than 2004. That is an increase of $374 over the past two growing seasons. The majority of this cost is in fuel, fertilizer and chemicals, but everything is costing more – from parts to labor.

We, as business people, must recognize these costs as being permanent increases and should not think they are going to change in the future. This presents a challenge for all producers – not only potato growers, but all segments of the farming economy. I wish I had a good solution to this problem. If we cut inputs any more, we risk losing the quality that our end users are expecting and the possibility of a lesser yield. Therefore, that is not the answer. What has to be the answer is an increase in what we sell our product for. The time may be here when fresh shippers, dehy processors and fry processors need to develop a closer working relationship with their growers so as to ensure supplies and quality to the marketplace.

In addition, we must develop a more unified approach to marketing. We must demand a fair price for finished product. We cannot continue doing what we have done in the past. Many of my neighbors are looking at alternate crops to try to keep their farms in the black. In discussions with one of the fry companies, they conveyed that the average age of their grower base was 55, which could be a sign of where this business is headed. It is very clear to me that this next generation has weighed their options after graduating from college and most are deciding not to return and grow spuds. I hear many of them say, “why should I work 14 or 15 hours a day and risk all that my family has, when the probability of a profit is so minute.”

As most of my production goes to make frozen products, I would like to challenge that segment of the industry to try to develop a marketing plan in conjunction with the growers – a plan that would address the increasing cost not only for raw production, but also in the processing plants. I know that your costs have skyrocketed over the past year, also. It won’t be an easy fix, but I think united we can be successful. Let’s face it: Without spuds, a plant’s not of much value, and without a plant, we would not be growing spuds. Who knows, maybe next year we will all be milking cows.

www.fromthefield.spudman.com 

For additional information about our company or our products, check our worldwide Web site: http://www.cropprotection.dupont.com

From The Field - Copyright © 2000-2006 • Great American Publishing • All Rights Reserved