Deadlines Instead of Science & Philippine Market Opens Up For U.S. Fresh Potatoes

Deadlines Instead of Science & Philippine Market Opens Up For U.S. Fresh Potatoes

I’m Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

In a July 17 House Natural Resources Committee hearing Chairman Doc Hastings raised concerns to Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell over the proposed ESA listing of the White Bluffs Bladderpod plant in Benton and Franklin counties.

HASTINGS: The deadlines that we see and my constituents see is that there’s going to be a decision made not because of good science but because of the deadlines. In this issue of bladderpods, none of the private landholders were notified prior to the listing. Ironically, the private landowners that were impacted said that “if they had contacted us earlier, we probably could have reached some sort of a settlement, but we knew nothing at all about it.

The proposed listing for the Bladderpod includes over 400 acres of privately-owned land as habitat, which could cost over $300,000 in lost irrigated agriculture value.

Until recently only fresh U.S. potatoes destined for processing into potato chips were allowed entry into the Philippines. On June 13 USDA’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service returned a signed market access agreement to the Philippine Bureau of Plant Industry in which the government of the Philippines will now allow entry of U.S. fresh table-stock potatoes. U.S. potato marketing reps caution that exports will take some time to grow because the russet type potato is not well known in the market and there is substantial local production. Growers having questions regarding this market opening should contact the Washington State Potato Commission or the US Potato Board.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Ag Information Network.