Ontario’s potato growers buck national trend for 2010

Ontario bucked the national trend of a decline in potato production last year and saw an increase in the amount produced over the previous year.

But according to Statistics Canada’s potato production report released todday (pdf) production declined four per cent across the country in 2010 to 97.3 million hundredweight compared to 101 million hundredweight in 2009.

Don Brubacher, general manager of the Ontario Potato Board, says in Ontario there was an increase in demand from processors for potatoes used in chips and that meant an increase in the number of acres grown for 2010 to 38,500 from 37,000 in 2009. In Ontario, production in 2010 was 8.17 million hundredweight, up from 7.83 million hundredweight in 2009.