PRESQUE ISLE – Maine’s potato crop this year will be the smallest in 117 years, following a trend of production cuts across North America.

Maine farmers this year planted 55,500 acres of potatoes, a decline of 8,000 acres from last year and the smallest crop since 1888, said Maine Potato Board Executive Director Don Flannery.

As recently as 1982, Maine farmers planted 106,000 acres of potatoes.

“It’s Maine’s smallest crop in modern history,” Flannery said.

The decline in planted acreage mirrors a decline elsewhere.

The North American Potato Market News, an industry newsletter, said this year’s North American crop is down 125,000 acres from last year, making for what will probably be the smallest harvest since 1991.

In Maine, Flannery said some growers have been getting out of the business because they can’t get financing, while others who have been in the industry for years have retired.

Farmers are getting attractive prices for their product, Flannery said.

“Now growers need good marketing so they don’t create a glut in the market to lower prices,” he said. “Prices right now are where they should be.

We should have a decent marketing year, which is something we haven’t said in years.”

Flannery said the potato industry is hoping for additional acreage cuts – but not in Maine.

“The industry in Maine has cut more than enough,” he said. “Cuts are needed out West and in Canada.”

The potato industry in Maine has an infrastructure that needs to be maintained and that can handle more acreage, he said.

“The problem was created out West, and that’s where more cuts need to come from,” he said.

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