10/17/05 Idaho potato harvest is a good one

There's still a lot of digging to go in southern Idaho with the fall potato harvest. Near Firth everyone seems to be working in the fields this time of year. Connie Clawson is driving one of the many trucks loaded with potatoes, in this case Russet Burbank's. CONNIE "This is my father-in-law's field and we're almost done with spud harvest so this is our last field." There's an air of optimism on the Clawson farm this year. MARK "Overall I think the yields will be down a little bit. The quality is better than we had anticipated originally. Overall I think its going to be a fairly good crop." With some problems in the Canadian potato crop and the reduced acreage brought on by the United Fresh Potato Growers co-op supply has fallen more in line with demand and prices are at seven to eight dollars per hundredweight. Mark Clawson knew that he was growing too many spuds. MARK "With this United co-op that came on they were trying to get us to cut at least ten percent. We had already decided as a farm that we needed to cut more than that so we decided to stick to our original cut which was 20 percent." His cuts and others meant 25 thousand fewer acres of potatoes planted in Idaho this year. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott