What state is the leading potatoes producer?

Answer 1

Although all 50 States report producing at least some potatoes, most U.S. potato production is concentrated in 9 States, according to statistician Arvin Budge of USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service.

"These nine States have consistently produced about 83 percent of the U.S. potato harvest over the past few years," says Budge. "Idaho is by far the leading producer, accounting for about 28 percent of the 1989 crop. Washington is a distant second, with 17 percent of the 1989 crop."

The other seven big producers are North Dakota, Maine, Wisconsin, Colorado, Minnesota, California, and Michigan.

According to the 1987 Census of Agriculture, Hawaii was last in potato production and Arkansas next to last. Census figures show that, in 1987, 37 States had potato output of 4 million hundredweight (cwt) or less, and 33 of these States produced less than 1 million cwt.

Whatever the state of the Nation's latest potato harvest, there's never any paucity of potato statistics.

Whether it's price, production, or stocks, USDA has the facts. No less than 12 major reports provide potato data considered indispensable by producers, distributors, and retailers, says ERS economist Gary Lucier.

Topping the list is Potatoes, an annual report issued by USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), which carries potato supply, disposition, and value estimates, by State, for the past two seasons.

If information is needed more quickly, there's Crop Production, which estimates potato production every month of the year except December. The first estimate of total planted acreage is carried in the July report, and the first estimate of fall-crop production is in the November report.

Potato Stocks, issued monthly by NASS from December to May, includes the revised fall-crop production in December, fresh fall-crop potato stocks from 15 major States, and processing potato use in 8 major States. Breaking down stocks a bit further is the monthlY Cold Storage, also by NASS, which estimates stocks of frozen potatoes in the Nation's frozen food warehouses.

On the price front, there's the monthly (with an annual supplement) NASS Agricultural Prices, which includes estimates by State of monthly grower prices for potatoes, with a breakout of fresh and processing prices for Idaho and the Unites States.

A good companion to Prices is Crop Values, a NASS annual that contains State-level estimates of the marketing year average price and value of production of major crops, including potatoes.

Another guide is Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Prices. Produced annually by USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), it compiles weekly USDA market news reports into monthly price observations for leading f.o.b. shipping points and New York and Chicago wholesale prices.