North America's top potato-producing regions were unseasonably cold and wet during the 2019 growing season, creating uncertainty about the coming year's potato supply. Idaho, North Dakota and Minnesota, as well as the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Manitoba, experienced enough adverse weather from September to November to significantly affect this year's potato harvest.
The USDA expects the lowest yield since 2010, 22.4 million tons, a 6.1 percent decline since last year.
Frosts stunted potato growth in some regions, yielding smaller spuds overall, while snow and rain forced farmers to abandon some crops in the field. This could lead to shortfalls and rising prices.
Meanwhile, french fry demand continues unabated. According to market research firm NPD Group, fries are the top food ordered at restaurants. In the year ending October 2019, there were 9.4 billion servings of french fries ordered at U.S. restaurants. And according to Amanda Topper, associate director of food service at market research firm Mintel, french fries grew 8 percent as a dish on U.S. restaurant menus in the last four years.
Although frequently featured as golden, crisp accompaniments to the all-American hamburger, fries get haute, too, seen by some gourmands as the perfect duo with champagne.
But only about 50 percent of potatoes are consumed fresh, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The rest are processed into potato food products, animal feed and starch for industrial use.
Adverse growing conditions this year have meant shortfalls for other American crops, too. In November, the USDA reduced its sugar projections by half a million tons, or more than 6 percent, because of a poor sugar beet harvest. This in turn prompted the Commerce Department to raise its import limit on refined sugar from Mexico by 100,000 tons. Crisis averted.
That can't readily happen with potatoes, says Idaho Potato Commission President Frank Muir. Although China is the world's largest producer of potatoes, according to Muir the USDA's "phyto-sanitary laws" prohibit fresh potato imports from there for fear of introducing soil-borne pests or bacteria. The United States is the fifth-largest producer of potatoes after China, Russia, India and Ukraine.
"The USDA is responsible for making sure produce does not come into the U.S. with potential diseases that we do not have here. I've never seen a truckload of fresh Canadian potatoes coming into Idaho," Muir says.
Fresh potatoes are, by and large, a "hold your own" product, without the imports and exports of other commodity crops. Idaho, which produces about a third of American potatoes, harvested about 308,000 acres of potatoes, according to Muir.
Muir says he doesn't anticipate significant shortfalls but predicts that prices will continue to rise through the end of the year.
"There will be periods that are very tight with supplies," says Blair Richardson, president of Potatoes USA, "but you're not going to go to McDonald's and not have french fries."