J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 1 9 4 POTATO GROWER 4 POTATO GROWER North Dakota Acreage Continues To Decline by Ted Kreis, NPPGA Marketing and Communications Director In the past decade, North Dakota has seen a steady decline in potato planted acres while Minnesota has remained nearly constant. The last time North Dakota potato acreage increased was in 2012 when the state planted 4,000 more acres than the previous two years but since then there has been a steady decline. In 2012, the USDA reported 88,000 potato acres were planted in North Dakota, this year there will only be about 73,000 acres. That 15,000 acre decrease represents a 17% decline. In general, the North Dakota decline has been shared by all four sectors; fresh, seed, process- ing and chip. There are many reasons for the decline in planted acres in North Dakota but there are a few factors that stand out. Processors prefer the quality and consistently of irrigated potatoes, so over the past decade growers have moved thousands of contracted acres from dryland to irrigated production. With irrigated yields doubling or even tripling dry- land yields, many fewer acres need to be planted to fill the same need. Another factor in declining North Dakota potato acres is increasing trend-line yields. Average trend-line yields in North Dakota are a combi- nation of dryland and irrigated acres. Because of the high number of dryland acres still grown in North Dakota, average yields in the state can go up and down from year to year dependent on the weather. However, if you look at a ten year time period or longer, a steady trend is easy to see. In general, average yields in North Dakota have increased by 50 hundredweight per acre in just the past ten years. Without higher consumer demand, acres need to go down to keep sup- ply in check with demand. Speaking of demand, per capita con- sumption of potatoes in the U.S. has dropped by about 11 pounds per person in the past decade. Even when factoring in the 19 million person increase in the U.S. popula- tion, demand has dropped by 11 million hundredweight in the past 10 years. The fresh sector is hit hardest by this trend. So why have potato acres in Minnesota been more constant in the past decade than in North Dakota? I think there are two main factors. First, a large percentage of the 45,000 potato acres grown in Minnesota are for one processing plant, the Lamb-Weston facility in Park Rapids. A healthy export mar- ket for frozen potato products has kept frozen processing plants busy and even led to recent expansions in the western U.S. and Canada. But without plant expansion in Park Rapids or any major disruptions in U.S. export markets, acreage to sup- ply this plant has remained relative- ly steady. The second reason for steady acres in Minnesota is because of the sta- bility in Minnesota’s fresh growing region. Only a sliver of Minnesota’s fresh production is in the Red River Valley, the vast majority comes from irrigated acres in the Big Lake region of the state. Growers there have a niche’ market, only selling off the field in the late summer and early fall. With little or no storage capa-