Sep 11, 2019USDA’s final 2018 potato crop total 4.2 million cwt below estimate
Final USDA National Agriculture Statistics Service (NASS) totals state the 2018 U.S. potato crop at 450.02 million cwt, down about 901,000 cwt from the previous year.
Final figures were released by the USDA on Sept. 11, 2019. The USDA-NASS’s original January 2019 estimate for the crop was 454.314 million cwt, a difference of 1.0% from the final tally.
The average yield was up from 2017 by 11 cwt per acre to 443 cwt.
Processing
Potatoes to processing numbers continue to rise, as totals exceeded 289 million cwt, up from 284.4 million cwt in 2017 and 276.8 million cwt in 2016.
Table stock
As processing potatoes rise, table stock numbers continue to fall. Fresh spuds totaled 106.5 million cwt, down from 109.8 million cwt in 2017 and 114.2 million cwt in 2016.
Shrinkage
Shrinkage and loss numbers estimated at 25.5 million cwt, 2% above 2017.
Total value
The value of all potatoes sold in 2018, at $3.75 billion, decreased 3% from the previous year. The average price, at $8.90 per cwt, was down $0.27. The quantity of potatoes sold from the 2018 crop totaled 420 million cwt, down slightly from 2017.
Quantity sold accounted for 93% of 2018 production, unchanged from the previous year. The other 7% went either for household use or seed on farms where grown or were accounted for as shrinkage and loss.
The full report can be found here.
Final production by state, 2018
Idaho 141,750 cwt- Washington 100,800
- Wisconsin 27,135
- Oregon 27,000
- North Dakota 23,725
- Colorado 21,722
- Minnesota 18,705
- Michigan 18,240
- California 15,457
- Maine 15,035
- Nebraska 9,264
- Texas 7,438
- Florida 5,512
- New York 3,886
- Montana 3,885
- Illinois 2,850
- North Carolina 2,318
- Missouri 1,665
- Kansas 1,419
- Virginia 1,034
- Others 1,180
