The fame of Maine ’s other big crop, the potato, has
waned since its glory days. It has a similar number of acres under cultivation
as the blueberry does, about 60,000, and is worth somewhat more in economic
impact. Its fields can be equally beautiful: the plants blossom massively and
pinkly in spring, and in the fall, in the several weeks between removing the
visible plants and digging the fruit, the fields are a gorgeous palette of
contoured “hills” in browns and greens. But the potato has keenly suffered from
competition.
Technology has conquered regional
advantages. Potatoes are now stored in refrigerated warehouses and suffused
with a gaseous sprout inhibitor and can be held indefinitely. Thus, the words “Maine ” and “Idaho ” mean
little anymore; Aroostook
County
But this is one industry that seems determined that
technology and marketing will not leave it behind. It touts: GPS for “precision
agriculture” (whatever that means), digital imaging to grade potatoes, huge
harvesters, high-tech storage techniques that preserve spuds for a year, the
marketing of Maine potatoes for seed, “adding value” locally, i.e., produce
fries and chips near the farms, those little purple “heirloom” potatoes, new
uses like vodka and hand-made chips, and in a nice irony, the first state to
export seed potatoes to South America, where the potato originated. It seems to
be working for now, but the potato has become a commodity, and the way of life
it used to represent in Maine – the family
involvement, local color, festivals and traditions, the school holidays in
September during harvest – is almost gone, replaced by something approaching
the agri-business corn fields of the Midwest .
Excerpted from Saving
Maine: A Personal Gazetteer
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