When the Mississippi Department of Agriculture announced in November it was trying to secure disaster relief for the state’s sweet potato industry, which lost an estimated 63% of its 2009-10 crop because of excessive rains, my first question to shippers was: will there be enough yams for Christmas?
Call me naïve. While I had a vague idea of recent trends in the sweet potato industry, I clearly needed more education on the matter. It came in January, in the form of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual Crop Production Summary report.
Despite Mississippi’s woes, 2009 actually saw an increase in U.S. sweet potato production, according to the report. About 19.6 million cwt. were produced last year, up from 18.4 million cwt. the year before.
Even more surprising (to me, at least): North Carolina and California alone accounted for 15.3 million cwt. of that total. That’s more than the entire industry produced as recently as 2002.
Of course, much of that two-state dominance can be contributed to the fall rains, which also affected some Louisiana production.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the Tar Heel State and the Golden State continue to break away from the pack when it comes to sweet potatoes.
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