| Show LETS LOOK AHEAD WITH YOUR COUNTY AGENT PEOPLE AND POTATOES po catoe price ceilings were put in effect january 10 ceilings were imposed after the december 15 report of prices received by farmers showed potatoes at per cent of parity the announcement no of ceilings said in part this regulation is d designed to accomplish three objectives jec tives first to protect the Fon consumer sumer against further rises in in the price of this major food item second to establish reas enable and equitable limits to distributive margins and third to reflect per cent ot of parity to producers utah growers have entered a protest to OPS officials because a lower price ceiling per hundred f fw 0 b loading point was set on utah potatoes than was set on idaho potatoes these utah J growers feel their potatoes are arc equally as good as those grown in idaho and point out they are arc selling at identical prices on competitive markets why should potato prices be high enough that ceilings could be imposed last year prices were extremely low pikes on december 15 1930 weri 43 49 per cent of parity compared with 1 per cent on december 15 1951 the explanation seems to be that our potato consumption is fixed As pointed out in the february 2 issue of lets look ahead demand for potatoes does not vary greatly with production or prices this means it is quite easy to get excess production and surp lusses the U S market for potatoes is estimated at about equal to million bushel crop according ng to V D kennedy and R W wilcox university of idaho economists when the crop is larger the price is low while a slightly smaller crop such as we had in 1951 pushes the price up fast the 1951 crop million bushels was about 24 per cent less than the 1950 crop million bushels the 1951 crop in the late states million bushels was about 25 per cent less than the 1950 crop million bushels reduction was the result of lower acreage and lower yield unfavorable moisture reduced the percentage of high grade in some areas especially in idaho and maine As a result the amount of potatoes available for sale was reduced more than the total crop was below 1950 the 1950 yield per acre with the 1951 acreage would have given us a crop of million bushels or approximately th the amount of the 1950 crop m mi it government purchases from this information it appears we would need only a slight increase in acreage or yield in 1952 to provide us with plenty lenty of potatoes and any farge large increase in the crop would cause us trouble price wise |
