Friday, April 9, 2021
CapitalPress.com 9
Big Idaho Potato Truck to hit the road again
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
The Big Idaho Potato Truck
will take to the highway again this
year, after last year’s national tour
was cut short as COVID-19 clo-
sures began.
This year’s tour is tentatively
slated to start July 1.
“That is just in the exercise of
caution to allow us time to see how
the pandemic sorts out,” Idaho
Potato Commission President and
CEO Frank Muir said. “We are
gauging the start based on that,
and we will still evaluate as we get
closer.”
The commission will delay the
Idaho Potato Commission
The Big Idaho Potato Truck makes an annual promotional tour around the U.S. It’s part of a national
marketing campaign to set Idaho potatoes apart from others.
tour’s start further if conditions
warrant, he said. Various safety
protocols are to be followed at tour
stops.
The event lineup is not fi nal-
ized. Muir said venues and event
organizers have shown strong
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Wikipedia
Feta cheese
the economic well-being of
America’s dairy farmers and
jeopardize dairy processing
jobs and workers throughout
the supply chain who sup-
port our industry. These bar-
riers must be removed,” she
said.
Jim Mulhern, president
and CEO of National Milk,
said “we need USTR to con-
tinue pressing our trading
partners to eliminate tariff s
and nontariff barriers that
restrict our dairy exports.
The best way to do that is by
implementing new free trade
agreements and enforcing
existing agreements.”
USTR’s 570-page report
examines 65 trading part-
ners and country groups,
highlighting signifi cant bar-
riers to U.S. trade. It can be
found at: www.ustr.gov .
100
festival in Florida when the com-
mission called it back March 13;
Muir cited safety and well-being
of fans and crew.
The average full-length tour
costs $700,000 to $800,000, he
said. The commission last year
USDA: NW wheat acres stable, more corn, soybeans nationwide
EU monopolization of
common food names a
key focus for USTR
The
USDA
fore-
casts more corn and soy-
bean acres nationwide, but
expects a stable wheat crop
in the Pacifi c Northwest.
If growers’ intentions are
realized, the agency said in
its prospective plantings
report, Idaho and Oregon
farmers will plant the most
corn on record.
“Certainly stronger corn
prices have helped provide
support to wheat prices as
has good demand,” said
Glen Squires, CEO of
the Washington Grain
Commission.
Idaho farmers are pro-
jected to plant 400,000
acres of corn, up 2.6%
from 390,000 acres in
2020. Oregon farmers are
projected to plant 120,000
acres, up 20% from
100,000 acres in 2020.
Washington corn acres
are likely to decline 8.3%,
from 180,000 in 2020 to
165,000 this year.
The largest increases
are expected in the Dako-
tas, where producers
intend to plant a com-
bined 8.9 million acres,
an increase of 2 million
acres from 2020. Pro-
ducers across most of the
Corn Belt intend to plant
fewer acres than last year,
according to USDA.
Soybean
growers
intend to plant 87.6 million
acres in 2021, up 5% from
last year. If realized, this will
be the third highest planted
acreage on record, accord-
ing to the agency.
Squires expects numbers
will change due to demand.
“There has been some
good demand, particularly
with China,” he said. “We
hope that it continues.”
In the Northwest, wheat
acres are expected to remain
relatively stable.
Washington farmers are
expected to plant 2.33 mil-
lion acres, down 0.4% from
amount in dryland pro-
duction, it provides a good
deal of continuity,” Oregon
Wheat CEO Amanda Hoey
said.
Harvest outlook will
be dependent, in part, on
needed moisture, she said.
“We did not have any
major reports on winter
kill as it was fairly mild
and while the wheat looked
small coming out of win-
ter, we did get snowfall in
much of the state thereafter
and now just require those
essential spring rains for fi n-
ishing,” she said.
2.34 million acres in 2020.
Idaho growers are pro-
jected to plant 1.27 million
acres, up 2.4% from 1.24
million.
Oregon wheat farm-
ers are expected to plant
720,000 acres, down 2.7%
from 740,000 acres in 2020.
“Not much change for
PNW as is often the case,”
Squires said. “Exact same
planted wheat acres from
last year. Just some reduc-
tion in winter wheat off -
set by increase in spring
wheat.”
“With such a large
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The U.S. Trade Represen-
tative’s offi ce on March 31
released the 2021 National
Trade Estimates Report, not-
ing tariff and nontariff barri-
ers impacting U.S. exports
of goods and services.
Among its top con-
cerns for agricultural trade
is “restrictions on the abil-
ity for U.S. producers to use
the common names of prod-
ucts that they produce and
export.”
The U.S. “remains highly
troubled by the EU’s over-
broad protection of geo-
graphical indications, which
adversely impacts both
protections of U.S. trade-
marks and market access
for U.S. products that use
common names in the EU
and third-country mar-
kets,” USTR said in the
report.
The European Union’s
aggressive and growing
misuse of geographic indi-
cations in its trade agree-
ments blocks U.S. exports of
products with generic food
names and wine terms, such
as feta, bologna and chateau.
“USTR’s recognition of
GI misuse as a means of
confi scating market share
is an important step toward
proactively addressing this
problem,” Jaime Castaneda,
executive director of the
Consortium for Common
Food Names, said in a state-
ment on USTR’s report.
“We are encouraged that
CCFN members’ persistent
work alongside the U.S.
government on this issue has
elevated the concerns sur-
rounding GI abuse from a
relatively obscure issue just
a decade ago to a priority for
the agency,” he said.
“It is imperative that
USTR and its interagency
partners work to ensure com-
mon names are not further
restricted by the European
Union’s blatant attempts at
monopolizing generic terms
that consumers around the
world have come to know
and love,” he said.
The consortium contin-
ues to work alongside USTR
to build on the precedent set
in the recent U.S.-Mexi-
co-Canada Agreement nego-
tiations on the inclusion of
a list of common cheese
names to be protected from
GI restrictions in perpetu-
ity. Similar proactive mea-
sures are necessary to ensure
that products with common
names can continue to be
sold around the world with-
out unfair limitations.
Castaneda also serves as
senior vice president of trade
policy for U.S. Dairy Export
Council and National Milk
Producers Federation, which
have also raised strong con-
cerns over the issue — as
well as other barriers in key
dairy markets such as Can-
ada, China, Mexico and the
EU.
Several of the groups’
concerns were incorporated
in USTR’s report.
“Exports are extremely
important to the U.S. dairy
industry, which shipped
more than $6.5 billion of
product to destinations
worldwide in 2020,” said
Krysta Harden, president
and CEO of U.S. Dairy
Export Federation.
“Obstacles to those
exports negatively aff ect
interest in hosting the truck, which
has been missed.
The fl atbed truck and its giant
potato payload a decade ago began
annual tours, typically from early
March to early September. The
truck last year was at a strawberry
saved nearly $700,000, which it
put into its reserve account, by
stopping the tour in March.
The commission this year
expects to save about $300,000 by
starting later, Muir said. The com-
mission board March 24 voted to
spend it on national advertising,
including on television streaming
service Hulu, web-based grocery
pickup and delivery service Insta-
cart, and recipes.com.
Commissioners discussed put-
ting the money into in-store pro-
motions, as potentially getting
money into the hands of pro-
ducers sooner. They instead
approved spending it on national
advertising.
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