News on The Potato Supply Chain

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will buy $18 million in fresh and frozen potatoes from the U.S. market. The announcement was part of a move by the federal government to purchase $161.4 million worth of  12 commodities for federal food and nutritio...

Conventional potato growers can topdress commercial fertilizer to meet a growing potato crop's need for nitrogen, but certified organic growers don't have that option. Meeting the crop's nitrogen needs during the transition period from conventional to...

Two more products have been recalled due to the possibility that they may contain salmonella-tainted hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) from Basic Food Flavors – but fears of a large-scale recall have proved unfounded.At the beginning of March, Food an...

The Idaho Potato Commission’s (IPC) 19th Annual Potato Lover’s Month Retail Display Contest triggerred retailers to pull out all the stops: Floor-to-ceiling, head-turning displays and increased retailer participation demonstrated that this retail promo...

The Potato Gene Repository at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Potato Research Centre in Fredericton is about to enter a new era with a $500,000 lab expansion.   What is a potato gene repository?   Think of it as a bank where more than 150 variet...

Since the beginning of Mar­ch, the price of potato has dipped more than 16 per ce­nt on account of higher pro­duction of the commod­ity in Ind­ia this year. High arriv­als have be­en reported in the man­dis and th­at has kept the sentiments we­ak for t...

The last couple of years have been tough on our potato industry. With a high supply and a low demand, it's been a farmer's nightmare. But this year, farmers say things should turn around.Last year the potato industry was hit with the perfect storm. &qu...

Hundreds of farmers blocked roads in Dinajpur and Rangpur yesterday demanding compensation as thousands of bags of potatoes they kept in cold storage have rotten due to alleged negligence of the authorities.   The affected farmers said the authorities ...

The annual potato production in GB is approximately 6 million tonnes, of which 60% will be stored prior to fresh consumption or processing.   Potato Council is currently supporting research to identify options to improve sprout control, through an imp...

The West Bengal Government has announced a transport subsidy of Rs 11 crore for inter-State transport of potatoes as well as export to other countries. West Bengal's potato production almost doubled to 95 lakh tonnes this year, against just about 55 l...

According to the results of a survey released this month by the German branch of the environmental organization Greenpeace, a number of snacks and fast food giants including Burger King, McDonald's, German seafood chain Nordsee and chipmaker Lorenz Sna...

Walker Brothers has received one of two Environmental Stewardship Awards from the National Potato Council.  Along with a farm in Washington State, Walker Brothers farm was praised for their leadership in habitat conservation for wildlife as well as pro...

Many readers are no doubt aware of last summer's late-blight infestation, in which a fungus, Phytophthora infestans, decimated local tomato and potato plantings. The fungus overwinters in southeastern United States but does not generally overwinter in ...

Idaho potato growers are taking to the field this spring without a collective agreement with major processors. The collective bargaining process broke down in Idaho last year following a dispute with ConAgra Foods. Growers blamed ConAgra, and the compa...

Production of winter and spring potatoes is estimated at 25.6 million hundredweight(cwt) in 2010, a 3-percent increase over 2009 and the highest level since 2004. (As of 2010, USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service includes California winter ...

U.S. sales of organic products continued to grow during 2009 despite the distressed state of the economy, the Organic Trade Association (OTA) revealed today in releasing findings from its 2010 Organic Industry Survey. In fact, organic product sales in...

A New Brunswick potato scientist will travel to Peru this month in an effort to help Canadian tubers fight blight.Dr. David De Koeyer, who works at the Potato Research Centre in Fredericton, has spent his professional life studying spuds.He's heading t...

The early potato from Andalusia comprising 75% of the Spanish crop, may have fallen 50% this year compared to the previous years, due to rain and bad weather this winter. These climate conditions, reduced the cultivation to 5,000 hectares approximately...