NEW CASH CROP

BUTTE — It started as a seed of an idea more than 20 years ago. Now, some small tubers are being touted as a potentially huge industry for Alaska.

At Gold Nugget Farms in the Butte, there are 6.5 acres of potatoes that Paul Huppert said rival any cash crop around.

“They’re the only plants in the Matanuska Valley worth more than marijuana,” Huppert said Wednesday at a meeting at the Mat-Su Borough building.

The potatoes won’t be gracing anyone’s table. They will be first-generation seed stock that, four seasons from now, could be sent to China to be part of the potato industry there.

Alaska is the only state in the country, and one of the few places in the world, from which China and Taiwan will accept shipments of seed potatoes. That’s because of the lack of diseases in Alaska, and it gives Alaska farmers an unparalleled opportunity, officials say.

And it’s no small potatoes. Taiwan wants about 3,000 metric tons of seed potatoes each year; China, 1.4 million metric tons. A metric ton is 2,204.6 pounds. Unlike table-stock potatoes, which wholesale for about $30 per hundredweight, or $662 per metric ton, sales of these fourth- or fifth-generation seed potatoes are estimated at $2 million per year to Taiwan and $154 million to China.

This year, as many of 500 tons of Alaska seed potatoes and mini-tubers will be available for export, if they pass rigid phytosanitary standards, state officials said.

It’s a project that has agricultural industry, state, local and federal officials excited about its potential, no one more so than the woman who has kept the effort moving forward despite setbacks.

“They say we are sitting on a gold mine,” said Jenifer Huang McBeath, a researcher and professor of plant pathology and biotechnology at University of Alaska Fairbanks.

For McBeath, who was born in China and raised in Taiwan, it’s an effort more than 20 years in the making.

“We finally reached a stage where we finally got all the players together,” McBeath said.

Elizabeth Gray, acting Mat-Su Borough manager, said she and borough staff are eager to shepherd the program to success.

“We believe it’s good for the whole state of Alaska,” Gray said at Wednesday’s meeting. “Economically, it makes a lot of sense.”

That’s what Paula Giauque thought when her father, Huppert, asked if she’d be interested in getting involved.

“It sounds like a wonderful thing for Alaska,” Giauque said. “I think there’s tremendous potential for a lot of farmers to get involved.”

Giauque and her daughter, Teri Bernowski, devoted a patch of Gold Nugget Farms’ ground to growing first-generation seed from mini-tubers that cost 20 cents apiece, plus shipping from Michigan. These starts were begun as tissue culture, and the seed potatoes they produce will be first generation, or G1, certified seed stock.

Giauque and Bernowksi are growing Russet Norkotah variety potatoes. Others varieties under cultivation for the Chinese are Kennebec and Snow White.

The 6.5 acres should produce enough seed potatoes to plant about 65 acres of what will become G2 stock. Given the standard multiplier of 10 times for each generation, the 65 acres of G2 seeds planted next year will produce 650 acres of G3 stock the following season.

It’s an exponential growth of not only potatoes, but of opportunity.

For Giauque, it could mean more potatoes and fewer vegetables on Gold Nugget acreage. The seed potatoes mean more profit and a little less effort.

“There’s a lot of hard work raising lettuce and cabbage,” she said.

Not that she and her family won’t continue to raise food for Alaska. Her brother, Jerry Huppert, and his family raise table stock potatoes on neighboring Butte Farms. Together, they market their harvests through the family-owned Palmer Produce. All together, they farm about 400 acres, including 60 to 70 acres of vegetables and about 100 acres of table-stock potatoes.

Because certified seed potatoes should not be raised on ground where table-stock potatoes have been raised for at least five years, Giauque and her family are eyeing lands, perhaps in Point Mac-Kenzie, to expand this new operation.

She said Gold Nugget Farms may not have the acreage available to plant this year’s foundation stock.

“I think we’ll be farming these out to other people,” she said.

If the state’s farmers are to embrace the challenge, more land needs to be put in production to meet the opportunity to ship 2 million metric tons of potatoes each year.

“We’d pretty much need every piece of land that the state of Alaska can provide us, and more,” McBeath said.

Some of the land will be in Delta Junction. The Idaho farmer helping facilitate the project, Richard Larsen of Larsen Farms, is working with three farmers in that area, as well as several in Mat-Su.

“We could ship a thousand acres (of seed potatoes) if we had it,” Larsen said.

Point MacKenzie is an attractive area for Larsen’s efforts because much of it has long been out of crop production, and it is near the borough’s port facility.

Land is one of three hurdles participants at last week’s meeting can see, along with getting enough mini tubers and building storage facilities for the small tubers. Other challenges include obtaining specialized equipment needed to plant and harvest the special tubers. Equipment used for harvesting table stock cannot be used.

Dave Hanson, the borough’s economic development director, said the project fits well in the borough’s economic development plan, which includes a strategy for agriculture as well as continued development of Port MacKenzie.

State Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development officials see the project as a boon, too.

“This is a great opportunity, with tremendous economic potential, for local farmers and the state of Alaska,” said Commissioner Susan Bell. “The return on investment of public money that went toward the testing and development of viable seed stock will be substantial. We appreciate the Alaska Manufacturing Extension Partnership for recognizing the importance of this project and the job-creating potential of Alaska farmers expanding their acreage up to tenfold to meet export needs.”

AMEP appropriated $250,000 from a DCCED grant to cover the costs of phytosanitary lab testing at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. AMEP will be working with Larsen Farms, Chinese importers, Alaska farmers and UAF scientists to develop a funding mechanism to make the export program self-sustaining, Bell said.

Curtis Thayer, deputy commissioner of commerce, said the involvement of Larsen Farms is the key to success. With Alaska agriculture suffering a black eye on some earlier state-funded projects, such as Point MacKenzie, Thayer said this project relies more heavily on private sector partnerships.

“The seed potato project is different, and the involvement of Larsen Farms is what changes the landscape the most for Alaska farmers,” Thayer wrote in a statement for the Frontiersman. “The dynamic of the public-private partnership is part of what makes this so attractive. Because of the involvement of the private sector, we have the presence of willing suppliers, a willing distributor and willing buyers at the table, all of whom recognize the tremendous potential of this project.”

The willing buyer is a Chinese farmer (see sidebar) who has large amounts of acreage at his disposal. Larsen would not give a figure, saying simply, “a lot.”

The state and federal government will be involved in the effort. The Alaska Plant Materials Center, a state-federal partnership, can supply about 200-300 pounds of potato starts, and could do more in the future if its facilities are used to capacity, McBeath said. State funding cuts to the PMC in recent years caused setbacks, but that was reversed with a commitment by the state to fund the facility in the Butte.

“The terms of the trade protocol mandate the involvement of the university, and a legislative directive will keep the PMC involved,” Thayer wrote. “But the project will not stand or fail based on the state’s interest.”

If it rises and falls on the interest of the Chinese, that, too, is assured, Larsen said.

The question, then, is if Alaska farmers will embrace the project.

Marian Romano, special assistant to the borough manager, said farmers will require support in terms of loans, equipment and land development. Investing in farming is a long-term effort.

“We’re going to need to support this,” Romano told the other officials around the table last week.

Move over rice

Chinese potatoes?

China may be better known for rice than potatoes, but China is the top producer of potatoes in the world. In 2007, the country produced more than 72 million metric tons compared to U.S. production of 20.4 million. China is also the top consumer of potatoes, according to facts assembled for the International Year of the Potato in 2008. The Chinese consumed nearly 48 million metric tons of spuds in 2005.

Feng Guozhen, the Chinese farm director who will import Alaska seed potatoes, explained at a meeting in Palmer on Wednesday that potato starch has a shelf life of 15 years, compared to rice’s five years of safe storage.

“In the future, the potato will occupy a more and more important position,” Feng said through translator Jenifer Huang McBeath, the UAF researcher who has spearheaded efforts in Alaska.

Feng said he is encourage by the coalition forming to make this project happen.

“Now we have the government support and all the technical knowledge and all the other expertise,” Feng said. “It’s like a ‘Dream Team.’

“I hope our dreams will come true.”

Potato nuggets

In 2009, Alaska farmers grew about 13.5 million pounds of potatoes for seed and table use. That was down from about 17.6 million in 2007 and 23 million in 2001. The value of Alaska’s 2009 potato crop was estimated at $3,348,000 by the National Agricultural Statistics Service, Alaska office. For more information on Alaska agricultural statistic, visit nass.usda.gov.