Manitoba potato growers likely lost more than $50 million this fall, because wet fields and frozen soil ended the potato harvest in late October.
About 12,000 of Manitoba’s 67,000 potato acres are still in the ground. Based on a price of 10 cents per pound, the losses are at least $48 million.
“If you figure (a yield of) 400 hundredweight and 10 cents per lb. That would be $4,000 an acre, multiplied by (12,000),” said Kevin MacIsaac, United Potato Growers of Canada general manager.
Leaving 12,000 acres of potatoes in the ground is extremely unusual in Manitoba, or in any province.
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“This year Manitoba … their losses are almost as large as what we had in all of Canada last year, which is just heartbreaking,” MacIsaac said.
The situation is similar in North Dakota, a state that ranks about fourth in U.S. potato production.
“Successive nights of subfreezing temperatures from late October into early November caused an estimated $45 million in damage to around 9,000 acres of red and yellow potato crops in the Red River Valley,” reported Fresh Plaza Nov. 6.
The frost and shortage of potatoes will affect french fry processing plants in Manitoba and North Dakota, including the Simplot Plant in Portage la Prairie, Man., McCain Foods in Carberry, Man., and Cavendish Farms in Jamestown, N.D.
In most years, potato processors can buy spuds from another part of North America, to make up for a shortfall in their region. Manitoba processors imported potatoes from Idaho and Alberta last winter, because Manitoba growers were unable to harvest 5,200 acres in 2018.
Importing potatoes may not be possible this year because production is down in most states and provinces.
Potato growers in Idaho, the largest producer in North America, also suffered through cold temperatures and below normal production this fall.
“Areas that we would depend upon for (extra) supply, don’t have that supply this year,” MacIsaac said.
Potato growers who were able to harvest all of their crop must fulfil their production contacts, but they are free to sell excess spuds.
Company buyers, for the french fry processors, potato chip processors and fresh potato firms, are scrambling to talk to those farmers.
“That’s basically what buyers at the various potato companies are doing…. They’re on the road and going in and out of farmer’s yards, saying what do you need to have for that pile of potatoes, or bin of potatoes?” MacIsaac said.
“(Now) it becomes a question of dollars. Which side of the industry needs the potatoes the most?”
The demand is great for growers who have extra potatoes, but a nightmare for frozen potato processors in Manitoba.
Simplot Foods has spent $450 million to double the size of its french fry plant in Portage la Prairie. The expanded plant is scheduled to open in late January.
The processing plants will have sufficient potatoes to run plants this winter and into the spring. The shortage will become a serious problem next summer.
