News on The Potato Supply Chain from Northern America

Kathy Sponheim, a fourth-generation potato farmer, grew up around vegetables and found a passion for agriculture at an early age. When she was young, her dad said that she had to work somewhere else for at least two years before she could work on the family farm.

Farm life always agreed with Brian Mahany from his early days working the fields on Sundays with his family. While he may have thought about other career choices in agriculture, he said he always came back to the farm.

The North America Potato Storage Organization (NAPSO) proudly hosted a comprehensive and insightful webinar on August 19, 2024, titled 'Preparing for a Successful Storage Season.'

The MyPlate National Strategic Partner Team recently recognized Potatoes USA with the Gold MyPlate Champion Achievement for actively participating in the MyPlate national strategic partnership and promoting MyPlate to important audiences.

The Potato Leadership, Education, and Advancement Foundation (Potato LEAF) has announced Xiuyan Zhang, a Ph.D. student at the University of Maine, as the recipient of the organization’s 2024-25 Academic Scholarship. 

United States' seed potatoes are a unique commodity for their exceptional quality, multiple varieties and stringent certification process. That was the message participants took away from the biannual Seed Symposium, hosted at Potatoes USA’s Denver headquarters in July.

In an examination of the genetic material found in historic potato leaves, North Carolina State University researchers reveal more about the tit-for-tat evolutionary changes occurring in both potato plants and the pathogen that caused the 1840s Irish potato famine.

Dr. Rebecca Earle, a professor at the University of Warwick specializing in food history, has unraveled the potato's nearly 500-year journey from obscurity to a global staple.

Picketa Systems is thrilled to introduce a significant new feature for our LENS platform: Custom Critical Levels. This innovation provides agronomists unprecedented control over nutrient management, making it easier than ever to optimize crop health and maximize yields.

Potatoes USA, the national marketing, research, and promotion board for the potato industry, elected Shelley R. Olsen as Chair of the Board at its annual meeting. Potatoes USA also announced its Executive Committee members to lead the organization through 2024-2025.

Farmers in the southeastern United States struggle with the invasive guava root-knot nematode, a microscopic roundworm, which infects and damages a variety of crops, particularly sweet potatoes.

Machine-Learning driven crop insights tool HarvestEye has partnered with one of Prince Edward Island’s (PEI) prominent potato growers, G Visser & Sons.

In October 2023, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack launched the Regional Agricultural Promotion Program (RAPP) to build demand for American food and farm exports in high-potential markets around the world.

McCain Foods is embarking on an expansion of its network of Innovation Hub farms across North America.

Tuberosum Technologies is thrilled to announce a groundbreaking achievement in Canadian agriculture: the successful registration of four new True Potato Seed (TPS) varieties.

Nutrien Ag Solutions announces the acquisition of Suncor Energy’s AgroScience assets, which consists of several patented and patent pending technologies in the area of biocontrol.

Picketa Systems, an agricultural technology company founded to unlock agronomic potential, announces its expansion into 13 states across the USA with its groundbreaking LENS system.

Kip Yeates, Vice President of Fresh Operations at potato company Wada Farms, highlights the success of their partnership with Ellips in enhancing potato grading efficiency and quality consistency, exceeding initial expectations and paving the way for future advancements in AI-driven grading technology.