Farmers are typically an optimistic bunch, but unfortunately, many things that control their success or failure are beyond their control. For example, the health of the U.S. and foreign economies has a direct impact on what farmers can do year in and year out.

Chris Voigt, Executive Director of the Washington State Potato Commission, says with so many questions about the American economy, consumers are pulling back and not eating out as often. That has made restaurants nervous, which makes potato processors nervous, saying they don’t want a contract for a bunch of potatoes that may not be needed.

“And so, everybody’s being very conservative right now, and we’re actually seeing a reduction in our acres. We don’t know exactly how big of a reduction. It could be 10 percent, it could be 15 percent, and that’s concerning because, for a long time, Washington has always maxed out our potato acres. We could never grow more than about 165,000 acres every year unless we were able to get some more water out of the Columbia River or expand the Columbia Basin project. But this is kind of the first time in our history, in a long time, that we’re having to make some really big cuts. I’d never thought we’d see that day, and here we are.”

Voigt added that pull back is being reported in other economies around the world as well. In case the drop in demand isn’t challenging enough, now farmers need to determine what to do with land that’s not growing potatoes.

Voigt says because of the struggles of the overall ag economy, there are few options.

“Is there something I can grow out there that’s low inputs, that I can at least break even on, or is there a crop that I can raise that maybe I’ll lose a little bit of money, but it’ll help my potato crop next year, maybe return some nutrients to the soil, or maybe it will reduce disease or soil or weed pressure for the following year.”

Voigt says he’s hopeful the U.S. economy and the farm economy can turn around fairly soon and provide growers with options.