Research funding a priority for potato growers

Farm and Ranch January 22, 2010 When the National Potato Council met recently for its annual meeting the industry established its legislative and regulatory priorities for this year. Chris Voigt, Executive Director of the Washington State Potato Commission says one of the key priorities is research.

Voigt: “We are really going to concentrate on trying to beef up research appropriations to the potato industry. Currently we get about 1.4 million dollars for potato breeding that is shared across the country. We are going to try and double that.”

Voigt explains why increased funding for potato breeding is important.

Voigt: “Breeding is going to be the key for solving a lot of the problems for our industry. If we can reduce pesticide use by making better varieties that are resistant to diseases, this is going to be critical. So we actually made a tremendous amount of progress last year. We had a million dollars approved for potato breeding previously and we were able to get that up to 1.4 million and we are going to shoot for 2.8 this year. We think it is a worthwhile program that has a lot of benefits to society.”

Much of the potato variety improvement in the Pacific Northwest is funded through the Tri-State Breeding Program. That involves the cooperation of researchers at the regions three land grant universities as well as USDA Agricultural Research Service personnel.

That’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report. Brought to you in part by the Washington State Potato Commission. Nutrition today. Good health tomorrow. I’m Bob Hoff on the Northwest Ag Information Network.