Potato Varieties

Potato Varieties. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

John Keeling, the executive vice president and CEO of the National Potato Council is pleased with this years turnout at the 2013 Potato Expo at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. One of the big pushes at this years event is different varieties.

KEELING: There are folks from the British Potato Council as well as Tessco, obviously a major retailer in the UK are going to be here to talk about the role of varieties in giving consumers additional choices and improving market opportunities for potatoes. And I think it’s going to be great because I think if you look at where consumers in the UK are they tend to be on a lot of issues a little bit out in front of us so what we see happen in Europe happens here later so I think there’s a lot that U.S. growers will be able to learn from these big marketers in the UK.

There is also a general feeling in the potato industry that they are reaching the crest of a hill that started a few years back when potatoes became the pariah of the nutritional world.

KEELING: There’s a bit of a paradox at play here. What we see as positive attitudes towards potatoes are rising. Those negative attitudes that had been associated with Atkins and some other things are declining but what we are seeing is potato consumption continue to be flat or slightly declining. I’m speaking mostly about the fresh market at this point. Maybe the answer is we’re not providing enough options to consumers. It’s not exciting enough. Is it the economics of the time.

They hope to see some answers perhaps from this years Expo.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.