The Northwest American potato industry wants to increase average yields by 10 tons per acre in the next two decades, says Chris Voigt, executive director of the Washington State Potato Commission.
Expansion in the processing industry will create new dynamics for Washington and Oregon potato production, the leader of Washington’s potato commission says, according to capitalpress.com.
“We have incredible growing demand in Asia; we still have growing demand here domestically, and we’ve got to keep up with that,” said Voigt. “We’ve had international customers on quotas for several years now; we just have not been able to get them enough frozen potato products overseas.”
Voigt gave an update during the annual conference for farmers from both states.
Solutions include increasing water to dryland farming in the Columbia Basin Project and increasing yields, which have been relatively flat in the past decade.
