08/16/06 WPC, its impact on Idaho

Mowbray Brown started working on getting the World Potato Congress to come to Boise about six years ago. That's right after he attended the WPC session in South Africa. Brown and colleagues at the Boise Convention and Visitors Bureau put together the information that the WPC wanted to see. BROWN "A document outlining the costs to the organization, the cost to the attendees, about what average hotel rooms are going to cost, what meals cost at the center and in town, what it costs to fly here." Brown says Boise had something other cities didn't have, nearby farm land and the Simplot Company stepped up and offered some of its land near Wilder for the Farm Show. BROWN "Seattle was considered, Denver was considered. Both of those places, as we say, would be a 'fer' piece to get out to some place to do a potato farm show." Brown says when Boise was awarded the WPC bid he assumed that a second city convention center would have been built but that didn't happen. BROWN "A lot of the exhibits and academic poster sessions and that kind of stuff that would normally happen at the potato congress will be happening down at the farm show in Wilder because of a lack of space here." Its all about potatoes but it's a huge economic gain for the state's most urban area. That's tomrrow's story. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott