WASHINGTON, D.C. — Transportation bottlenecks for exporters, more expensive fertilizer and the final opening up of the Mexican market for U.S. fresh potatoes are the major issues facing U.S. potato growers, according to National Potato Council CEO Kam Quarles.

Quarles, who heads up the organization that lobbies Congress and U.S. government agencies on behalf of potato growers, processors and exporters, is set to address this year’s Washington-Oregon Potato Conference on Wednesday, Jan. 26.

The conference is scheduled for the Three River Convention Center in Kennewick beginning Tuesday, Jan. 25, through Thursday, Jan. 27.

Among the things Quarles said was most important for potato growers in 2022 is the opening of Mexico’s market to imports of U.S. fresh potatoes.

“We’re just finalizing the opening of a tremendously valuable new export market and Mexico,” Quarles said. “We’ve been working on that for 25 years.”

In April 2021, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled 5-0 to strike down federal regulations that limited the import of U.S.-grown fresh potatoes to the 16 miles immediately south of the international border. Quarles said final regulations covering the trade in fresh potatoes should be ready this year, opening up a market worth more than $150 million to U.S. potato growers.

“And (the U.S. Department of Agriculture) has been working to put all of the final regulatory pieces in place since that time,” he said. “Within the next couple of weeks, all of those final pieces should be complete.”

Quarles said Mexican potato farmers managed to maintain a “hammerlock” on regulations restricting U.S. imports, including tariffs and strong phytosanitary rules. And when U.S. and Mexican negotiators reached a deal to allow U.S. potato exports, Mexican farmers sued their own government, keeping the matter locked up in Mexico’s court system until last year’s ruling.

“And that’s what tied us up for seven years or more,” he said.

Quarles said his organization has been working to get some kind of relief to port operators or investment in port modernization and expansion that would alleviate the transportation backlog making it harder for U.S. potato processors to export their products.

“That is obviously incredibly complicated, because you’re dealing with the shipping lines, you’re dealing with a marine terminal operator,” Quarles said. “And, you know, the federal government has a hand in that, but they’re not in control of it.”

However, Quarles said farm groups are also concerned that any final legislation not contain changes to the tax code that would hurt agriculture, noting that potato growers in Washington and Oregon in particular are coming off two very bad years — first, by the pandemic in 2020 which shut down the foodservice supply chain and then in 2021 by drought and heat which reduced the harvest.

“We’ve got an industry that had its legs kicked out from under it with the pandemic, and we don’t want to have our competitiveness impaired by major changes in tax policy to our disadvantage,” he said.

Quarles said the difficulties plaguing ports and shipping companies has also made things potato farmers need to grow a successful crop, like fertilizer, more expensive and difficult to get.

“We’re looking at what the supply chain issues. Are producers going to have the right inputs to plant their crop next year? Is the fertilizer going to be there? Are the other crop protection tools going to be there? We don’t know the answer to that,” he said.

All of the things that farmers have come to rely upon, that have to wind their way across the world from factories in China to get to places like Moses Lake and Othello, that have suddenly gotten difficult to find.

“All those things that you came to rely on, all of a sudden, they’re not there anymore, or they’re there at vastly different prices. And it’s just a completely different world for producers,” Quarles said.