What’s in Your Idaho Potato

I grew up in Idaho and the Idaho Potato is part of my heritage. We Idahoans are so proud of our potatoes that we put the slogan, “Famous Potatoes” on our license plates and drive around advertising our pride.  With the advent of monoculture farming, large corporate farms and the influence that those corporations have on farmers and the way they do business, I decided to take a closer look at what is in my Idaho Potato.

The best look at the process that my potato, the soil and water go through on one of these farms, comes from Michael Pollen’s book, The Botany of Desire. Hold on to your seat, your in for an uncomfortable ride.

Michael asks a potato farmer outside Jerome, Idaho to tell him the process that his fields and crops go through in one season.Keep in mind that this is a very large farm that grows Burbank Russets for McDonald’s restaurants. The seed potatoes are purchased from Monsanto and are genetically engineered to kill the potato beetle and treated with a the pesticide, bt, and Roundup ready. The potato is called the New Leaf potato.

Here is our farmer’s seasonal regime: In the spring it begins with a soil fumigant to control nematodes and certain diseases in the soil. Then potato farmers douse their fields before planting with a chemical toxic enough to kill every trace of microbial life in the soil. Next he puts down an herbicide to clean the field of all weeds. Then at planting time a systemic insecticide is applied to the soil. This is absorbed by the seedlings and will kill any insect that eats their leaves for the next several weeks. When the seedlings are 6 inches tall, another herbicide is applied to the field for weed control. Pesticides and fertilizers are added to the irrigation systems. Fertilizers are added weekly. This water comes from the Snake River and the runoff returns to the Snake River. When the plants are up the farmer then sprays with a fungicide to control late blight. The farmer will hire a crop duster (aircraft) to spray for aphids on a 14 day interval. This farmer must now spray his field with Monitor, a deadly chemical. Our farmer admits that this chemical is so toxic that he won’t go into his fields or let his help go into the fields for 5 days after it is sprayed. This chemical is to control the harmless brown spots that Russets are prone to get. This chemical is required by McDonald’s because their can’t allow their fries to have blemishes.

The FDA has not run test on this potato. They do not officially consider the New Leaf potato to be a food. Because the New Leaf Potato contains the pesticide bt, they consider this potato to be a pesticide and that puts it under the jurisdiction of the EPA.

Keep in mind that these are our perfect fries from McDonald’s and that  there is no labeling required on them to let you know what they contain. There is no labeling on your bag of non-organic Russets from the supermarket either.

What can you do? Buy local and organic. We trust our local Farmer’s Market to provide good organic spuds and our local co-op. Raise your own potatoes, our nursery carries organic seed potatoes. Stop being a cog in the process and refuse to eat GMO, Roundup ready and toxic foods. We vote every time we eat at McDonald’s and with every purchase we make at the grocery store.