Peanut Growers to Decide Checkoff and 2023 Potato Harvest Data
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with your Agribusiness Update.
**The USDA will conduct a referendum April 8-19 for eligible U.S. producers of peanuts to decide whether to continue their checkoff program.
USDA's Ag Marketing Service will conduct the referendum by regular mail, express mail and electronic ballot.
Ballots and voting instructions will be mailed to all known eligible peanut producers.
Folks engaged in the production and sale of peanuts in 2022 and during the referendum are eligible to vote.
**A new report from the Ag Departments of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada reveals the 2023 North American Potato harvest data.
The 2023 potato production for the U.S. and Canada combined is estimated at 570 million per hundredweight, up 8% from the 2022 estimate.
American potato production is estimated at 441 million hundredweight, up 10% from last year.
Canada's potato growers harvested 129 million, up 4%.
**Technological developments in agriculture have allowed continued output growth without requiring much additional inputs, according to a new USDA Economic Research Service report.
Innovations in animal and crop genetics, chemicals, equipment, and farm organization have made it possible for ag output to nearly triple since 1948.
During that time, input use declined slightly, meaning the growth in agricultural output has depended on increases in total factor productivity, the efficiency which inputs are transformed into outputs.
