If you drove through Bingham County in January and February of 1979, you would have witnessed an unusual amount of truck traffic on the highways and, out in the rural areas, an unusual set of activities at potato cellars. Were you at the right place at the right moment, you'd have seen cellar doors opened up with a resultant explosion of fog, the forty degree inside temperature clashing with the below zero outside air and gushing out with force into the brisk cold--not a typical scene when packers, who don't want the product damaged by cold air, pull potatoes from cellars.
Elsewhere, especially in the Magic Valley which boasted numerous large feedlots, you would have seen mounds of potatoes fifty feet high and more, as wide tired tractors with loaders drove up their sides smashing and compressing them in order to feed to cattle for the next few weeks. At the mounds' edges, ten wheelers and semis from throughout the Snake River valley were dumping their loads of spuds on the ground to be pushed into the ever-enlarging piles.
It wasn't a typical year. The potato crop had promised to be abundant when sampled late in the summer, but promise transformed into tragedy--yes, the fields yielded high and the quality proved excellent, but the result of everyone having a "good" growing season was that everyone would have a "bad" price. Hence, the government stepped in to bail out growers who might very well go broke without assistance.
By 1978, potatoes had been in the Bingham County area for over a century. According to the Idaho Potato Museum website, "potatoes were introduced to Blackfoot through Henry E. Jenkins, a freighter hauling a load of potatoes from Farmington, Utah, to Blackfoot, Idaho. The recipient of the shipment was Judge Stephens, who was encouraged by the freighter to plant the potatoes. This is believed to be the first potato planting in the Blackfoot area."
Around the same time period, in 1875, Fort Hall Indian Agent William H. Danilson reported that Chief Tyee's reservation farm yielded 210 bushels (a bushel is sixty pounds) of potatoes, among other crops, on his 42 acres.
The USDA estimated Idaho's 1882 spud crop at 2,000 acres with a value of $250,000, with 1904 seeing an increase to 17,000 acres valued at $1,328,000. Acreage and harvest totals continued to increase for years afterward, almost exponentially.
In Bingham County, the arrival of the railroad and the invention of refrigerated shipping cars in 1880 allowed farmers to find new markets for a crop that seemed suited to the climate and soil. By 1906, potato farmers were honing their marketing skills by forming an alliance of growers, The Farmers Protective Association, to not only grade and prepare potatoes for market but to also procure markets in order avoid the costly commissions they had been paying. In 1909, with the Aberdeen Branch Railroad assured, 110 Aberdeen area growers, their farms from Springfield to American Falls, formed the Aberdeen Potato Growers Association.
The 1919-1920 potato marketing season saw 1575 carloads shipped by rail from Bingham County, only 26 of them to internal markets in Idaho with all others moving out nationwide. Over five hundred left Blackfoot, more than seven hundred went out of Shelley, over 250 from Firth, 30 from Aberdeen and five from Pingree. The shipments made up twenty percent of Idaho's total.
The varieties Russets and Rurals were being grown in equal amounts by area growers, with the 1919 growing year being a poor one. Soils were dry at planting time and prolonged drought continued, leading to early irrigation water cutoffs. Some farmers waited to irrigate until plants bloomed and their crops suffered accordingly. Russets were affected by stem rot and Rhizoctonia struck both varieties, lessening crop quality, but a nationwide shortage of potatoes rescued the market price.
By 1937, the potato had become too successful, the crop's plenitude destroying market prices. The first government diversion program organized to move surplus off the fresh market by feeding cattle. Ten million pounds of potatoes would be taken off the national market, with farmers getting 25 cents for every hundred pounds diverted to other uses. Thirty four counties south of the Salmon River participated. The original diversion stipulated that potatoes must be #2 quality or better, and not less that one and a half inches in diameter. The potatoes could be of mixed varieties. By January, potatoes with "jelly ends" or knobs were also allowed for diversion. Six thousand carloads of potatoes were eventually moved through cattle feedlots, the farmers receiving five million dollars in return.
In November of 1940 growers petitioned the government for another diversion. They were only receiving between five and ten cents for a hundred pounds of number twos, so sought a five million bushel diversion which would pay them 24 cents a hundredweight. Senator Williams of Bingham County proclaimed the spud industry "sunk" if something wasn't done to save it. 12.5 million bushels were proposed to be diverted from eight western potato growing states. Only growers signed up with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration could participate, however, inspiring outcry from those not working with "the New Deal". 6000 growers were eligible.
Bonneville growers signed up to divert 8.5 million pounds. 243 million pounds of Idaho potatoes were expected to be taken off the market, and half were diverted by April 2 of 1941. Bingham County had moved over 13 million pounds. Ultimately, 6000 railroad carloads were sold for cattle feed.
1954 brought a truncated diversion that was called "too little, too late" and so was ended in April. The next year another diversion occurred, the price of diverted potatoes rising to forty cents a hundredweight. Growers were advised that potatoes had to be chopped, cut or otherwise damaged to deliver in order to prevent cheating through resale.
The '62-'63 growing season saw yet another diversion program, as did the following year, when subsidy prices reached 50 cents a sack (a hundredweight) to growers. Again in '67-'68, a diversion was needed due to surplus, the price set now at 55 cents a sack. The following year, an early, severe frost damaged 35% of the crop, setting the stage for yet one more diversion.
The multiple diversions of the '50s and '60's may have been in some part due to the appearance of sprinkler irrigation, which opened up hundreds of thousands of acres of previously unirrigable lands. The new method also likely improved yields on areas previously flood irrigated but which made the switch from shovels to sprinklers, which delivered water more frequently and in smaller doses. The extra yields no doubt altered the supply, creating a surplus, and even a three percent oversupply can completely decimate price levels.
The '78-'79 crop turned out to an exceptional one in the Pacific Northwest, reaching 175 million hundredweight, filling every cellar and building that might simulate one, even if only for a short period of time. Some farmers built makeshift storages out of straw bales, knowing they would have to market quickly as extreme cold would ruin potatoes stored in such flimsy units. Buyers, knowing their desperation, lowered their offers accordingly.
As the new year began, the USDA announced a diversion of nine million hundredweight of Russets, costing 17 million dollars. Each grower could divert only 60,000 sacks of cellar-run potatoes, just 10,000 in the first weeks, and would be paid according to samples taken to determine the marketable percentage of potatoes--a farmer couldn't just divert his poor crop and market his good one, as he would be docked according to quality. Some receivers of the diverted spuds might choose to pay delivery fees, authorities noted.
The program started in mid-January, with the initial ten thousand sack maximum keeping some growers from signing up. Most cellars were much larger than that, averaging about sixty thousand sacks, and to open them up for such a small amount meant probable damage to potatoes remaining unmoved. Only fifteen of eighty Idaho potato sheds were buying potatoes for the glutted market, and they were paying only one to two dollars a sack.
183 Idaho growers signed up the first week, their applications exceeding the amount of diversion allotted to Idaho--four hundred and forty million pounds. Bingham County alone accounted for 61 growers applying for 1.4 million pounds. They would be paid $2 a sack for potatoes going to cattle feedlots and starch usage.
Estimated cost of growing potatoes was $3.20 a sack, and the program sought to raise the average crop price to $2.83, a much smaller loss than would be garnered by placing all the potatoes on the market.
Cold January temperatures slowed potato movement, and many feedlots couldn't keep up with the influx of product. Spuds moving from a cold cellar for even a few miles often froze along truck beds outside layer, leaving a foot or more of frozen product which didn't bother the feedlot but might affect the sample quality--and resultant payment--adversely.
By the end of March, much of the diverted crop had been moved and the program deemed a failure, in that prices for growers on the open market hadn't risen to the target level. Grain producers complained that the competing feedstock lowered the demand and price for their product. The Potato Growers of Idaho noted that another 3-6 million sacks would have been needed to be taken off the market in order to make a difference.
While potato supplies continue to fluctuate--and always will, given the climate's effect on yields differing from year to year--there haven't been overproduction events as dramatic as 1978's, though the "hollow heart" year in the 1990s, when cool summer temperatures created potatoes with hole-y centers that made them difficult to grade, proved to be nearly as big a headache for growers and packers alike. Fewer growers and fewer buyers, and a better understanding of marketing has stabilized the industry, though it's still well-known for its volatility from year to year.
Ralph Thurston is the author of The Shanghi Plain: Bingham County's Early History, an account which expounds upon the century long extension of a frontier from the Snake River Plain's edges into its core. Purchase it locally at Kesler's Market and The Idaho Potato Museum, or online at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCCS7XLR?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860
Comments