An Evaluation of Cost Factors in the Production and Harvesting of Potatoes

Excerpts from the Introduction: The total costs of potato production and harvesting are widely variable among the major potato producing areas and among growers within an area. Some of the factors that modify production costs are indigenous to specific areas, such as soil type, climate, land values, and prevailing wage rates. Other factors that modify production and harvesting costs are related to the organization and management of the potato producing enterprise. The objective of the analysis presented here is to provide a guide for estimating these costs. Each of the several functions required in potato production and harvesting is separately analyzed for a range of performance rates with machines of different sizes used on annual acreages of 80 to 640 acres. Selected values can be taken from the analysis of these functions and combined to arrive at a figure for total production and harvesting costs. Another objective of this study is the determination of the cost of individual functions to give some indication where research might be profitable.