Potato Grower

WWW.POTATOGROWER.COM 31 LET'S BE FAIR... The knowledge United offers provides real value to growers. United Potato Growers of America By By Dick Okray Immediate Past UPGA ChairmanChief Operating Officer Knowing our markets should be the single biggest planning tool we use. Evidence leads us to believe we are more interdependent than independent. If you're as old as I am, (60ish) you notice when things change. For the last 15 years, potato prices have been much more stable than in the years prior. Gone are the days of boom- and-bust marketing cycles. Good riddance. Overproduction has never benefited growers. As an industry, we know how far we've come. We've watched fresh potato retailers aggregate at a much faster pace than we producers have, and their delivery model continues to change annually. In 2000, there were just shy of 6,000 potato growers in the U.S. Today there are about 2,500, still enough to consider our industry young. Laws that were passed in the 1920s make it possible for growers to collaborate and cooperate. Knowing this, should we consider our individual operations independent or interdependent? I propose the latter to be true. Why do cooperation and collaboration seem so at odds to farmers? I suppose that each of us believes we are unique. This has served us well over the years, constantly tweaking and evolving our farms to produce food at lower cost, higher quality and supposed differentiation. As a group, farmers are generally happy to share their inspirations, proud as they are of them. Catch us at the coffee shop and we'll share just about every bit of data, knowledge and working theory about our craft. And who among us doesn't go to continuing grower education meetings all winter long? But knowing our markets should be the single biggest planning tool we use. With so many growers, the danger of overproduction is always present. We shouldn't rely on bad weather elsewhere as part of a viable business plan. Evidence leads us to believe we are more interdependent than independent, and United embodies and supports this end. Checking the farmer's almanac, clumping the soil in our hands or divining the direction of the wind were fine tools back in the day. In today's environment of hyperdata and super-computing, no one would dare go to the field without a plan that uses precision farming. Without these practices, profit margins would suffer. So why not use the metadata that's been collected and massaged by United over the last 15 years to determine the actual number of potatoes that can be marketed profitably? All that data is available from your local co-op, and at pennies per hundredweight. It's the only growers' organization I've ever heard of dedicated to getting a fair return for its members. Most importantly, it works! It's a safe bet that our industry will continue to consolidate. The laws that we have today will someday no longer be available to us. But in the time that we have, we should use these tools to the best advantage that we can. Growers may have had issues with United in the past, but it deserves a second look. We deserve "fair"! 5 5 - Y E A R W A R R A N T Y L O N G E S T I N T H E I R R I G A T I O N I N D U S T R Y seametrics.com THE LEADER IN IRRIGATION FLOW TECHNOLOGY AG Series Magmeters E a s y t o U s e , A c c u r a t e & R e l i a b l e AG3000 Inline Magmeter • Accurate in Tight Installations • No Moving Parts to Wear Out AG90 Saddle Magmeter • Easily Replaces Propeller Meters • No Moving Parts to Rebuild For Information Contact Seametrics 800•975•8153 The Best Value in Irrigation Flow Measurement AG90 Saddle Magmeter NEW PRODUCT 4073-8Seametrics13h.indd 1 12/17/19 4:30 PM

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