Potato industry catches its breath heading into 2026

By Melinda Waldrop, Managing Editor

Just three months removed from the end of a 43-day government shutdown and still embroiled in the chaos of tariff disputes, potato industry participants in the National Potato Council’s 2026 Washington Summit will have no shortage of issues to focus on this February.

At the top of a packed agenda will be the continuation of a decades-long fight to fully open the Japanese market to U.S. fresh potatoes. Also high on the priority list is the urgency of federal economic relief to U.S. growers — specialty crop producers in particular — in light of losses suffered during a year-long tariff war and the ongoing trade complications stemming from that dispute.

“We are certainly going to have a lot to work on,” National Potato Council (NPC) CEO Kam Quarles told Spudman. “The two major issues that we’re dealing with are that we can impact, in a positive way for growers, is getting Japan open and then also getting this economic relief program right. Those are the two clearly big-ticket items that will really go a long way to helping growers.”

STICKING POINTS IN JAPAN

Despite trade meetings between U.S. and Japanese officials and a sitdown between U.S. President Donald Trump and newly elected Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi in October, no deal to fully open the Japanese market to U.S. fresh potatoes was reached.

Though the USDA estimates that a non-restricted market would boost trade by $150 million annually, little progress has been made to push past what NPC and other industry organizations say is protectionism on the part of the Japanese government.

NPC estimates that, since the end of the first Trump administration, U.S. family farms have lost over $750 million in exports to Japan because of trade restrictions. Japan is stonewalling negotiations through what Quarles has called an “unusual” handling of the pest risk assessment framework USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) uses to determine if potential imported plant commodity pests should be regulated and what phytosanitary measures should be taken.

Instead of assessing a risk of potential pests, Japan “has taken the unusual position of saying we will do individual pest risk assessments on every pest,” Quarles said. “It appears to be a tactic that will allow you to delay things almost indefinitely.”

U.S. government officials have maintained for years that there is no reasonable phytosanitary threat to importing fresh potatoes.

In early October, Quarles joined a delegation of potato industry leaders and USDA officials in Tokyo to press for fresh market access. USDA Undersecretary for Trade Luke Lindberg led the U.S. delegation after USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins canceled her participation last-minute because of the government shutdown, which began Oct. 1.  Quarles said the absence of Rollins’ “Cabinet-level” voice hampered the U.S.’s efforts.

The disappointment continued when fresh market access was not addressed in a trade deal between the two countries signed Oct. 28.

“We were really optimistic that everything was kind of aligning for the president to raise this when he met with the new Japanese prime minister, and for whatever reason, it was not raised,” Quarles told Spudman in early November. “It’s doubly frustrating, because in the scheme of complicated international issues, this is not complicated. This is surprisingly simple.

“Our potatoes are shipped very safely to a variety of different places around the world. The technical issues really have been resolved. It’s just a matter of Japan protecting their market.”

Going forward, Quarles said industry strategy will be to continue “the day-to-day pounding” on the issue, with advocates continuing to communicate to Congress and the Trump administration how vital fresh market access to Japan is. He pointed to a long-awaited breakthrough in 2022 that finally opened the Mexican market to fresh U.S. potatoes after years of wrangling — and increased fresh exports to that country of $130 million annually — as proof that seemingly intractable issues can be resolved.

“Our strategy on Japan, in my opinion, is a good one, as long as the administration recognizes the benefits to them of taking some time to try to get it right,” Quarles said. “Being an optimist, I really believe that at some point they’re going to realize we can put a positive $150 million a year in U.S. ag exports on the board for our administration if we can just sit down and get Japan to open up. That could be one meeting between the president and the prime minister of Japan. That could be two sentences in an hour-long discussion between the president and the prime minister of Japan.

“Truly, this can be done tomorrow. This can be done with one Truth Social post. It is that simple.”

ECONOMIC CRUNCH

Quarles also co-chairs the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance (SCFBA), a national coalition of 150 organizations representing growers of fruits, vegetables, dried fruit, tree nuts, nursery plants and other products. SCFBA has urged the inclusion of specialty crop aid in any emergency economic relief for the U.S. agricultural industry, hit hard by tariff turmoil and record yields.

U.S. farmers have missed out on billions in soybean sales to China amid stalled trade talks, while a recent USDA forecast of a record corn crop deepened concern for farmers already combating low prices and rising fertilizer and seed costs.

But while program crops — large-volume commodity crops such as corn or wheat — may draw a lion’s share of the public’s attention, help for those growers looks very different from aid to specialty crop producers, Quarles said. Program crops are eligible for direct government payments, while support for specialty crops typically comes in the form of federal investments in research, promotion programs, crop insurance and disaster assistance.

USDA’s Marketing Assistance for Specialty Crops (MASC), announced in December 2024, authorized Community Credit Corporation funds to help specialty crop growers and is an example of how such aid could work again, Quarles said.

SCFBA highlighted the need for targeted specialty crop assistance in a letter sent to Trump on Oct. 6. A Politico report in late October indicated that up to $12 billion in aid for farmers hurt by the Trump administration’s tariff policies would be available once the government shutdown ended, which happened Nov. 12.

However, the USDA’s $12 billion Farmer Bridge Assistance program, announced Dec. 8, directed $11 billion to row crops. The remaining $1 billion will be reserved for commodities including specialty crops and sugar, according to the USDA, “though details including timelines for those payments are still under development and require additional understanding of market impacts and economic needs,” the department said on its website.

“We are disappointed that specialty crop growers were not included in today’s announcement,” SCFBA said in a Dec. 8 statement. “As we wrote to the president on October 6, 2025, family farms that produce safe and nutritious fruits, vegetables, and tree nuts, as well as cultivate the trees, flowers, and plants that play a vital role in the nation’s health and wellbeing, continue to face unprecedented economic challenges.

“We stand ready to work with the administration and Congress to advance a meaningful assistance package to support specialty crop growers during this difficult period.”

The program included a Dec. 19 deadline for farmers to ensure their 2025 acreage reporting is accurate, according to USDA. Producers must certify that their adjusted gross income is less than $900,000 to be eligible, and payments will be limited to $155,000 per person or legal entity, according to the department.

“We as specialty crops, potatoes specifically, we continue to push Congress to say look, it’s vastly better to get this right straight out of the gate than have to do it piecemeal over a number of months where, in that intervening time, you’ve got farms going out of business,” Quarles said.

Quarles said the sense NPC and other industry advocates are getting is that the relief needed is “very substantial,” with estimates showing that russet potato growers alone may be underwater to the tune of $486 million.

“And that’s just one variety,” he said. “Those numbers get your attention. These growers are making the best of this very chaotic situation that they have been placed in. Everyone respects that the administration is trying to do some policy changes that in the long term, in their estimation, will provide benefits.

“The problem is, you’ve got to exist. If your business goes out of business in the short term, the long term doesn’t really matter.”

THE ROAD AHEAD

The back-and-forth dance of tariff imposition, lowering and removal has left the potato industry in a constant state of flux with trading partners such as Canada, first brought into the fracas by initial 25% tariffs levied by Trump in March. Canada responded with 25% tariffs on a list of U.S. goods including some potato products and crop inputs.

Canadian tariffs on most U.S. imports were removed in September as negotiations continued, though levies on products including steel and aluminum are still in place. The situation remains volatile — and valuable. According to USDA data, the U.S. imports nearly 90% of its potash fertilizer and 25% of its nitrogen fertilizer from its northern neighbor.

“It seems like the tariff situation is changing almost on a weekly if not daily basis,” Quarles said. “It depends on where you’re sourcing your inputs from. If they’re coming from Europe, they’re one rate. If they’re coming from Canada, they’re at another rate.”

Effects also vary based on products needed, said Quarles, who’s talked with growers facing 30% costs increases because of Canadian steel being used to build farm facilities.

“That speaks to a larger point of the chaotic nature of what folks are facing as tariffs move around,” he said. “It makes it incredibly difficult to go to your banker, it makes it incredibly difficult for your banker to access your operations, when you have fundamental inputs that can change double digits overnight just at the stroke of a pen. It is a very confusing situation.”

Nearly a year into the tariff tug-of- war, Quarles said the leverage industry insiders hoped the trade pressure could create remains “a mixed picture.”

“Some of these deals have not been finalized, but the signals that we’ve gotten out of the administration in certain areas may result in reduced tariffs on potato products going into foreign markets, so that would be a positive,” he said.

“On the negative side … the rise in input costs from these tariffs has driven up the cost of production. So it really is a mixed bag.”

2025 also saw overhauls to ongoing labor issues. In early September, the USDA announced it was discontinuing a method of measuring farm wages dating to the 19th century. In a Sept. 3 notice to the Federal Register, the National Agriculture Statistics Network (NASS) said the Agricultural Labor Survey (or Farm Labor Survey) was not designed to reflect the current state of agriculture or labor.

That came on the heels of a federal court decision vacating the Department of Labor (DOL)’s 2023 Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) Methodology rule, which followed the June suspension of a contested measure that extended protections to H-2A guest workers who organize to form labor unions.

NPC and other agriculture organizations, including the National Council of Agricultural Employers and the Georgia Fruit & Vegetable Association, have applauded those measures and called for the reforms to be made permanent.

The labor landscape is yet another area to keep a close eye on in a new year, with the industry still roiling from a roller coaster 2025.

“There’s a cascading effect for all of these operations,” Quarles said. “It’s driving all of the costs up and it’s putting a huge amount of pressure back on the federal government to deliver some type of economic relief package for growers because of the chaotic nature of what’s going on in the international marketplace.

“We’re trying to bridge farms through the short- and medium-term to get to — what the administration hopefully believes — is a long-term, positive place.”