M A Y / J U N E 2 0 1 7 POTATO GROWER 29 People, Product News crop is slightly down at -0.06%. According to this April 1, 2017, USDA-NASS April 1 Potato Stocks report, potato processing is up over last year by 1.6 percent. For 2017 processing to date (December 1, 2016 – April 1, 2017) 637,590,000 cwt. of potatoes have been processed, versus 2016 processing of 627,735,000 cwt. (December 1, 2015 – April 1, 2016). Frozen processing increased from 528,910,000 cwt. (December 1, 2015 – April 1, 2016), to 542,385,000 cwt. (December 1, 2016 – April 1, 2017). This is an increase of 13,475,000 cwt. in frozen processing over last year (a 2.5 percent increase). Dehy processing declined from 98,825 cwt. (December 1, 2015 – April 1, 2016) to 95,205,000 cwt. (December 1, 2016 – April 1, 2017). This is a decline of 3,620,000 cwt. in dehy use, (a 3.7 percent decline). According the USDA-NASS Potato Stocks report, reliability of the stocks and processing data must be treated separately because the sur- vey designs for the two surveys are very different. The stocks estimates are subject to sampling variability because all operations holding stocks are not included in the sam- ple. Monthly processing data is col- lected from all known potato pro- cessing facilities in eight States (Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin). An effort is made to obtain a report from all facilities. Estimates are made for missing facilities to make the survey complete.