OUTLOOK, Sask. – There’s a good potato crop in the fields around here. Fall prices look good and producers are allowing themselves the luxury of optimism.
“I believe that our prices, if nothing more, will go back to normal,” said Harry Meyers, one of central Saskatchewan’s major potato producers.
“We could sure use it. Last year was a poor year – the worst I’ve ever seen.”
The local industry is recovering from a price plunge last summer that hurt growers. Prices for table potatoes in Western Canada fell 25 to 40 percent – below the cost of production in many cases.
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As in most agricultural industries, potato prices fluctuate year by year. But many producers in this area believe last year’s price plunge was caused by the Lake Diefenbaker Potato Corporation’s foray into the industry.
The company, which grew from nothing in 1996 to producing 6,000 acres in 1998, pushed millions of kilograms of table potatoes onto the market in Western Canada late last summer and through fall and winter. In a year and a half it had become Saskatchewan’s biggest potato producer. It went bankrupt in May 1999.
Some independent producers say the sheer size of the LDPC potato crop ruined the table potato market.
Most growers around Lake Diefenbaker have focused on growing high value seed potatoes. But between 40 and 60 percent of every seed potato crop is sub-standard and ends up in the table potato market.
The market for seed potatoes is continent-wide, and though there was a price drop last year, it was not severely affected by LDPC production, Meyers said.
But the more regional table market was.
Meyers said LDPC was selling potatoes below traditional levels, prompting other producers to slash prices to retain their customers.
The price for most of the last year has left everyone bloodied. The LDPC went out of business and other growers saw their revenues collapse.
But with the failure of LDPC and new processing plants in southern Alberta increasing demand, producers see a better fall and a better future.
About 6,000 acres have been taken out of seed potato production and some Alberta production has been switched to processing potatoes.
“I’m reasonably optimistic that with Lake Diefenbaker not in the table market, that has to strengthen the market in Western Canada,” said Meyers.
John Konst, president of the Saskatchewan Seed Potato Growers Association, said he is relieved growers don’t have to compete against the government-backed LDPC but he is bitter about last year and resents the lingering effects of LDPC’s demise.
“We have to pay the bill before the trucker comes into the yard,” fumed Konst, who has seen most truckers and aerial applicators refuse to give potato producers the credit that used to be automatic.
“We have to pay guys on the landing strip or they won’t fly over the crop.”
