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December 6, 2004

Planting a seed | Don Flannery and the Maine Potato Board plot new strategies for the industry

By Michaela Cavallaro
If the Maine potato industry is going to survive and even thrive, Don Flannery says, it's got to be global. That's why on Dec. 12 the Maine Potato Board, along with several other agricultural organizations, is sending a delegation to Cuba to explore the possibility of exporting seed potatoes to the island nation. "Florida is our biggest market [for seed potatoes], but that is not growing; last year, they cut production by about 30%, so we're now a large player in a smaller market," says Flannery, the board's executive director. "How do we grow our market? We have to take business away from somebody else. That's a hard way to gain market share. So on the seed side, we've got to start looking at export markets."

The Cuba trip is just one of a variety of strategies the Presque Isle-based Maine Potato Board is using to improve prospects for the state's most valuable agricultural crop. Last year was terrible for Maine potato growers, due to a lack of demand that suppressed prices. The industry already had been dealing with a welter of changes over the last decade, ranging from growth in the market for processed potatoes, which now make up 60% of Maine's crop, to the concentration of the retail market. In addition, Flannery says, in the fresh market, there is a "trend away from the round, white potato Maine is known for to more russet potatoes. Our industry was slow to make that turn."

As a result of all those changes, in July the potato board held what it dubbed a potato summit, a gathering of about 110 growers who spent a day talking about problems and solutions in the industry. They came up with a list of 150 problems as diverse as Maine's business climate and the lack of options for off-grade potatoes. In mid-November ˆ— after this year's harvest was completed ˆ— Flannery sat down with about 25 growers to consolidate that list, with an emphasis on items the potato board and growers actually can impact.

High on the list were those off-grade potatoes. "Every year, no matter how good the quality of the crop or how big or small, there's a certain volume of potatoes that don't go to market, and the grower has to dispose of them," explains Flannery. So growers hope to develop some sort of value-added product that would create a market for the spuds. Flannery says the plan is to get funding to do a feasibility study in 2005 that would analyze the various options ˆ— biofuel, starch, cattle feed, packaging products and alcohol are among the possibilities ˆ— and see what makes the most sense. By the end of next year, he'd like to have a clear direction to go in, so the potato board can put together a business plan to attract entrepreneurs in whichever field is most promising.

Other priorities emerging from the summit include increasing the amount of potatoes processed in Maine by 15% by 2007, which Flannery says could be achieved with the expansion of an existing processor, or the addition of a few small processors or one big one; increasing the percentage of irrigated acres in the state from the current 12% to about 30%, which Flannery says would improve potato consistency for processing; and improving marketing for fresh potatoes.

None of this, of course, is possible without money. Flannery also hopes to convince the Legislature to expand the Potato Marketing Improvement Fund, which was created with money from two bond issues. The fund currently contains about $4 million, which is available to growers for long-term, low-interest loans for construction of and improvements to storage and packing facilities. But Flannery, who's been with the potato board for eight years, would like to see the funds available for industry-wide infrastructure development. "My previous life was in economic development [at the Northern Maine Development Commission] before I came to the potato board," he says. "So I'm a firm believer that if you've got some seed money, it's a heck of a lot easier than if you don't have it."

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