Washington potato production among the most sustainable on the planet

Washington Ag Today June 3, 2011 Washington potatoes are not only good for you, their production is highly sustainable. That’s what the Washington State Potato Commission is learning from a partnership with the Keystone Center of Colorado.

Potato Commission Executive Administrator Chris Voigt says that partnership has been developing metrics to measure how sustainable the potato industry is and what the trends have been over the past ten to twenty years in preserving natural resources.

Voigt: “We now are just starting to get some of the preliminary data back and it actually looks really good. It shows that Washington, mostly because I think of our ideal climate, our perfect soil and growing conditions, we are one of the most sustainable potato growing regions in the world.”

Voigt says inputs like fertilizer, pesticides and water use are compared to production.

Voigt: “We are seeing that the trend for fertilizer use for example, fertilizer use has come down quite a bit over the past 20-years as well as water use. We have become very efficient with our water as well as example insecticide use has come down.”

Voigt says it is new technologies that have enabled inputs to be reduced and that comes from research, be it Commission or state funded at Washington State University, or federally funded through the Agricultural Research Service.

Voigt: “ That research is critical for us to make those gains that we need and those efficiencies in our industry and to become more sustainable.”

That’s Washington Ag Today. Brought to you in part by the Washington State Potato Commission. Nutrition today. Good health tomorrow. I’m Bob Hoff on Northwest Aginfo Net.