10 CapitalPress.com
March 10, 2017
Sweet potatoes run in grower’s family
By JULIA HOLLISTER
For the Capital Press
Matt Alvernaz knows sweet
potatoes, which he calls “na-
ture’s superfood.”
“I am a fourth-generation
sweet potato farmer,” he said.
“My grandfather was ‘Sweet
Potato Joe Alvernaz,’ one of
the pioneers in the California
sweet potato industry.”
Growing up, Alvernaz
spent his summer days weed-
ing sweet potato fields on the
farm his parents and grandpar-
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ents owned near Livingston, a
town in Merced County.
“Then the weekends I
would spend working on my
grandparents’ dairy,” he said.
In high school he was in-
volved in FFA, showing dairy
cattle. Alvernaz judged dairy
at Modesto Junior College and
at Cornell University in Itha-
ca, N.Y., where he received a
bachelor of science degree.
He is now the farm manag-
er of his parents’ sweet potato
operation in addition to farm-
ing his own 300 acres. His
wife, Sarah, is the sales and
general manager of a grow-
er-owned company, the Cali-
fornia Sweet Potato Growers
shipper-packer.
The company packs and
ships 300,000 cartons of sweet
potatoes and yams each year.
Sweet potatoes are diffi-
cult and expensive to raise.
They require sandy soil and
warm, dry weather and clean
water, he said. “They are very
labor-intensive and require a
large capital investment year
after year.”
Each acre demands be-
tween 100 and 120 man-hours,
and that does not include pack-
Courtesy of Jill Hough
Matt Alvernaz, a sweet potato
grower in Merced County,
Calif., says about 22,000 acres
are planted to sweet potatoes
in the state each year.
ing labor, he said.
Each year, about 20,000
to 22,000 acres are planted to
sweet potatoes in California.
Ninety-five percent are grown
in Merced and Stanislaus
counties.
Several varieties of sweet
potatoes are available but
four main color categories are
grown in California: Jewel (or-
ange skin and flesh), Red (red
skin and orange flesh), Sweets
(yellow skin and flesh) and
Oriental (purple skin and white
flesh).
The main pest concerns are
nematodes, army worms, wire
worms, rodents, gophers and
squirrels, he said.
Alvernaz said several
looming challenges face Cal-
ifornia sweet potato growers.
“Water and labor are our
main concerns,” he said.
“Without clean surface water
the roots will not produce nor
store the way we need them
to.”
Salinity in ground water
is another concern and there-
fore not the favored irrigation
source, he said.
Competition
originates
across the continental U.S.
“The Southern growing re-
gions in the United States can
be the biggest competition for
fresh retail, as they are able
to produce sweet potatoes at
a fraction of the cost of Cal-
ifornia,” he said. “Fortunately
our soil, water and climate
provide us with quality roots
to maintain our market share.”
The best news coming
from the fields is the health
benefits of the colorful
globes, he said.
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