Idaho potato acres drop by 5%

By Sean Ellis

Idaho Farm Bureau Federation

POCATELLO – As expected, Idaho potato acreage is down 5 percent this year compared with last year.

Will that be enough to turn a market that has been unkind to spud growers recently? Probably not, according to farmers and industry experts. But it’s a start, they add.

In a June 30 acreage report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that Idaho farmers planted 300,000 acres of spuds in 2026, down 5 percent compared with 315,000 in 2025.

USDA estimates U.S. growers planted 873,000 acres of potatoes in 2026, a 29,000-acre or 3 percent reduction compared with 2025.

The open market price that spud farmers in Idaho and the U.S. have been getting recently for their potatoes is well below what it costs to produce them.

Many spud farmers were hoping for a big enough potato acreage reduction this year to significantly affect farm-level potato prices.

That does not appear to be the case.

“Growers planted fewer acres of table potatoes, due to extremely low prices and demand uncertainty,” North American Potato Market News owner Ben Eborn wrote in the July 2 edition of NAPMN. “However, this year’s acreage reduction may not be enough to turn markets around.”

The 15,000-acre reduction in Idaho spud acres was forecast in NAPMN’s April 2 edition.

How yields turn out will likely determine the supply and demand balance for spuds in 2026, Eborn added.

“Probably even more significant is what yields are going to do,” said Oakley potato farmer Randy Hardy. “What are we going to end up with at the end of the year?”

Farmers and potato industry leaders said this year’s acreage reduction is a positive start, even if it’s not as low as they had hoped.

“It’s kind of about where we thought it would land,” Hardy said about the 2026 potato acreage numbers. “It would be better if potato acreage was closer to 10 percent down, but it’s a good start.”

“It’s not as low as it needed to be, but it’s a good start,” said Idaho Potato Commission CEO Jamey Higham.

The potato commission does its own count of Idaho potato acres and this year’s IPC count came in at 298,915.

Idaho typically produces about a third of the nation’s total potato crop and spuds are this state’s top crop in terms of total farm-gate revenue. Idaho potato farmers typically bring in more than $1 billion worth of farm-gate revenue each year.

When potato processing is added to the equation, potatoes bring in billions of dollars to Idaho’s economy each year.

According to USDA, eight states reported a downturn in planted potato acreage this year. The reductions came in Idaho (-15,000 acres), North Dakota (-3,000 acres), Colorado (-2,000), Michigan (-2,000), Minnesota (-2,000), Nebraska (-2,000), Wisconsin (-2,000) and California (-1,000).

Potato acreage in Florida, Maine, Oregon, Texas and Washington is unchanged from 2025. No states reported an increase.
Total U.S. spud acreage has declined from 966,000 in 2023 to 932,000 in 2024 to 902,000 in 2025 to 873,000 in 2026.

During that same period, Idaho potato acreage has gone from 330,000 in 2023 to 315,000 in 2024 and 2025 and 300,000 in 2026.

According to USDA, this year’s spud acreage is the nation’s lowest since 1952. However, potato yields are higher now than they were then. NAPMN forecasts total U.S. potato production this year could be down only 2 percent compared with last year because of expected higher average yields.

The USDA data, according to NAPMN, suggests that potato farmers reduced Russett acreage in several states.

“The downturn was driven by extremely low, unprofitable table potato prices,” Eborn wrote. “In addition, new varieties, yield increases and storage improvements continue to reduce the number of acres needed to meet current demand levels….”

According to Eborn, the planted area for frozen processing potatoes in Idaho is expected to increase this year, while table potato acreage appears to be flat or down slightly from last year. Contract volumes for dehy processing potatoes, he adds, are down significantly this year.

In the April 2 edition of NAPMN, Eborn wrote that  potato growers “across the country are extremely concerned about current market conditions, rising production costs, the lack of profitable alternative crops, the ability to obtain financing, increasing global competition, and limited irrigation water supplies. In addition, North American growers also have a huge supply of potatoes from the 2025 crop in storage.”

Idaho’s potato acreage this year is the state’s second smallest since 2010’s 295,000 total. Idaho farmers also planted 295,000 acres in 2022.