Expanding Potato Trade

Expanding Potato Trade. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

It appears that the U.S. and Mexico are about to open the trade doors when it comes to potatoes. In a joint statement from the National Potato Council and the United States Potato Board it is evident this is a strong move. NPC Executive Vice President and CEO, John Keeling echoes that.

KEELING: This is a great step. It gets us closer to the end, we hope. And we’re working with USTR and USDA to evaluate the language of what they did and obviously there are a lot of details to be worked out in terms of particulars of the work plan as they say which is the particular work plan that will govern exactly the specific requirements.

Keeling says there is a 60-day period ahead of us.

KEELING: USDA will be posting in the Federal Register I would say probably Monday or Tuesday the U.S. portion of it that will allow Mexican potatoes to come to the U.S. That’s actually one of the bright spots in all this. It was done in a bi-lateral way and that will occur next week and we’ll work through the last bit of the process over the next 60 days.

The U.S. grows a significant number of potato varieties but according to Keeling there are a few varieties that are native to Mexico that Hispanics in the U.S. would like to have access to.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.