12/23/05 Grant helps with spud trade barrier

Farm and Ranch December 23, 2005 The Washington State Potato Commission has received two five thousand dollar grants from the Washington State Department of Agriculture to address current trade barrier issues facing the state's potato growers. Matt Harris, Director of Trade for the Potato Commission says one of the grants will be used to address fresh potato shipments for the chipping industry in South Korea. He says Korea has a zero tolerance for Columbia Root-Knot Nematode. Harris: "What we are running into is that when those potatoes go over, or when they leave our country, they have to be zero percent tolerant. So we are working on a method to write a protocol that would allow for a one percent tolerance so that if our potatoes do indeed have Columbia Root-Knot Nematode there would be a one percent tolerance for us to have in place so we could ship those potatoes to Korea to be processed. It's in hopes that we can negotiate with Korea for this. So it is a tool we are trying to develop." The project must be complete in June of 2006. Another grant will be used to develop evidence in a future challenge of dumping duties on Washington fresh potatoes going into British Columbia. Details on that in a future report. That's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report. Brought to you in part by the Washington State Potato Commission. Nutrition today! Good health tomorrow!. I'm Bob Hoff on the Northwest Ag Information Network.