Wasilla Farms’ Potato Hopes Mashed
WASILLA — Point MacKenzie farmer Keith Moore hoped to ship up to 40,000 pounds of his Alaska red eye potatoes to Yunnan province in China this year. But a cut in state funding to a University of Alaska Fairbanks lab that tests the plants for diseases — a requirement for exporting — has left him without a market for his spuds.
That leaves Moore out $12,000. The bigger loss, he and others say, is the vast potential market in China and Taiwan for Alaska’s relatively disease-free potatoes.
Companies in both countries have standing orders to buy Alaska seed potatoes, according to state agriculture officials. But both countries require testing to prove the spuds are disease-free before they are imported.
"I got a bunch of grandkids and got like five kids, and I’d love to have them inherit this potato business if we could," Moore said.
The state’s potato industry generates about $2.5 million a year for farmers mainly in Mat-Su and Delta Junction. But that pales in comparison to the potential Asian market, said professor Jenifer Huang McBeath, head of the UAF plant pathology and biotechnology lab.
China is the largest producer of potatoes in the world with more than 70 million tons grown in 2005, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Taiwan also is a big producer, McBeath said.
Already two American food companies, J.R Simplot and Frito-Lay, which run farms in Taiwan and China, have expressed interest in buying Alaska seed potatoes to grow in China, McBeath said. Three companies have standing orders for Alaska potatoes, she said.
Simplot’s China-based arm has a standing order for 22 tons of Alaska seed potatoes this year and 44 tons next year, she said.
A company in Yunnan province in southern China that manufactures potato starch also has a standing order for the same amount, while a Taiwanese seed potato company wants 22 tons this year if farmers could provide it, she said.
Frito-Lay officials, meanwhile, are looking at having Alaska farmers grow a proprietary potato used for making potato chips, said Ray Nalder, the company’s agronomy director for greater China.
McBeath said the fact that Alaska’s disease-free potatoes can produce bigger yields and require fewer pesticides is the appeal to Asian countries. The interest is clearly there, she said.
McBeath said she originally asked for about $300,000 in state funding for testing at the Fairbanks lab. That amount was reduced to a request for $170,000 in the state Division of Agriculture budget, which the Legislature chose not to fund. Calls to several Valley legislators were not returned.
Other labs can do the same work the university lab does, but none are located in Alaska, she said.
Bill Campbell, who runs a potato-testing program at the state-run Plant Materials Center near Palmer, confirmed that. His lab has the equipment but not the specialized staff to do the testing, he said.
McBeath’s lab actually tests the plants; the state center does mostly visual inspections, he added.
Moore, who sent potatoes two years ago to the Yunnan province trading company, is not the only farmer affected if the program lapses. Farmer Ron Nelson of Delta Junction said he placed a $6,000 order for seed potatoes he hoped to grow for the Asian market.
While the potential market for exporting has been huge, the program has yet to garner wide support from the state’s potato farmers.
McBeath said many are content selling to local markets, and unwilling to risk growing a new crop for an unproven market.
Moore said he thinks the program has been hurt by legislators skeptical about the need for continued state subsidies for agriculture.
The state and McBeath have been trying for more than 10 years to open up the markets to China and Taiwan.
In meeting with legislators this session, Moore said he found they looked more at the amount spent per potato previously exported than future potential, he said.
"It could be so huge, it’s unreal," he said.
McBeath said the program would be difficult to start up again if the funding lapses, since testing to approve the potatoes for export must cover two growing seasons.
If there is any hope for the program, a promise of funding will have to come through in the next couple of weeks to give the lab time and the staff to do the testing, she said.
Moore hopes that will happen, but isn’t holding his breath.
"I think our drop-dead date has passed about a month ago," he said.
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Reporter S.J. Komarnitsky can be reached at skomarnitsky@adn.com or 352-6714.
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