Potato Farmers Tackle Hunger

Potato Farmers Tackle Hunger

Potato Farmers Tackle Hunger

I’m Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

Over the last several years the Oregon Potato Commission has worked with Oregon State University on game day promotions at OSU football games. One of the things they’ve typically done is a potato bar where they serve up potatoes to the fans - collecting donations for Farmers Ending Hunger at the same time. This year the Washington Potato Commission joined the OPC in coordinating the game day fundraising event; both commissions also decided to place a friendly wager on the game where for every point scored 500 pounds of potatoes would be donated to a food bank in the winning team’s state. Washington Potato Commission’s Ryan Holterhoff.

HOLTERHOFF: As it ends up there were 71 points scored during the matchup between the Cougars and the Beavers, and that means that the Oregon Potato Commission was on the hook to give 35,500 pounds of potatoes to food banks in Washington state. We though decided to make sure that food banks were the true winners in the event and so the Washington State Potato Commission is matching the bet; so in reality food banks from both states will each receive 35,500 pounds of potatoes.

Holterhoff explains why they decided to do the event this time of year.

HOLTERHOFF: Food banks really have a spike in demand over the holidays, whether that be Thanksgiving and throughout the Christmas holiday season as well, and so our goal was to try to do our part to help with that demand that they see and provide quality nutritious potatoes for families that are in need.

Here in Washington the WPC is working with Second Harvest to deliver those potatoes.

HOLTERHOFF: By working with Second Harvest we get the benefit of being able to have those distributed throughout a network of local food banks and help many people in need.

That’s Washington Ag Today.

I’m Lacy Gray with the Ag Information Network of the West.

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