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6 POTATO GROWER | IDAHO ANNUAL 2017 GROWER OF THE YEAR Story and photos by Tyrell Marchant D an Moss was not born in Idaho. He didn't grow up in Idaho. He didn't even begin his farming career in Idaho. But rest assured, Dan Moss is Idahoan, through and through. Moss was born and raised on a family farm in northern Utah. But as the subdivisions crept farther and farther up the Wasatch Range, it became increasingly clear that continuing to farm in the region would only get more difficult. So 37 years ago, Moss and his wife Jann packed up the family and headed north on I-84, where the fertile, much less populated soils of the Magic Valley beckoned. The move, to put it mildly, has paid off. Today, Moss Farms comprises five management areas in three counties: two in the Burley-Rupert area on either side of the Snake River; the west farm in Bliss; the east farm in Raft River; and a seed farm in Sublett. In 2007, they purchased Arrowhead Potato Company, through which all their table-stock potatoes (about one-third of the Mosses' total potato production) are packed and shipped. The rest—excluding seed—are contracted to McCain, Simplot and Gem State Processing. Dan and Jann's son Ryan is the primary day-to-day operator of the farm these days, but Dan keeps plenty busy. He remains intimately involved with the farm and packing shed, and he's neck-deep in helping promote the potato industry—and the Idaho brand—through his involvement in industry trade organizations. A former grower-commissioner on the Idaho Potato Commission and president of the National Potato Council, Moss currently sits on the board of Potatoes USA and the USDA's Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee. Moss has always been a proponent of industry involvement and its positive impact on his own operation. And he practices what he preaches in that regard. 6 POTATO GROWER | IDAHO ANNUAL 2017