Mexico: Ending limit on the United States potatoes means growing market for Colorado farmers

Mexico is loosening restrictions on U.S. potato Imports, reversing limits that kept sales to border cities for decades and allowing spuds from the north to be sold across all of Mexico. Colorado farmers, particularly those in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado where most of the state’s potatoes are grown, are poised to be the biggest winners. They see the chance to add tens of millions of dollars worth of annual exports in the coming years. "We're ready to roll," said James Ehrlich, executive director of the Colorado Potato Administrative Committee trade group. "It's an exciting opportunity — potentially 70 million new customers.” Colorado is the fifth-largest U.S. potato-growing state. Farmers in Colorado produce over half the fresh U.S. potatoes exported to Mexico, benefitting from proximity — other major potato-growing states being much farther north — and from growing a crop mainly of potato varieties for fresh vegetable sales, not for processing into manufactured foods. ...