Wong Potatoes:  The Right Potato

By Phil Hayworth

Pioneer Press

Fort Jones , CA

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

page E8, column 1

pioneerp@sisqtel.net

If you think farmers - the backbone of the Klamath economy - are sitting on their duffs next to the fireplace sipping hot cocoa this time of year, you're wrong. They're busy moving their product from storage to market, planning next year's plantings, fixing machinery and generally breaking their backs in an attempt to pull profit from the fertile Klamath Basin soil.

And sure, the weather outside is frightful, but inside it's so delightful - particularly inside Wong's Potatoes - where a crew of 50 feverishly sort, box and fill orders for Russet, purple, yellow and red spuds.

Wong's is an example of everything that's right with the Klamath farmer. That's because hundreds of die-hard potato vendors have bought into the old saying: "You don't have the right potatoes unless you have Wong potatoes."

"We'll ship 50 million pounds of potatoes between now and May," said Wong's president Dan Chin.

The third-generation Klamath Basin farmer and businessman said his business is booming, thanks in part to soaring demand and a high-quality product that has loyal buyers begging for more potatoes.

"We'll ship all around the Pacific Rim , but mostly into Southern California ," he said.

Wong ships to markets as far away as Korea and Mexico , and they recently got an order in from Hawaii . That demand is driven by a desire for diversity, Chin said, and a reliability that Wong's has offered for more than 75 years.

"Buyers are willing to spend a little more knowing that they'll get high-quality and reliability on delivery," he said.

For example, 10 years ago, the good-old Russet potato was the spud of choice from Wong. Today, the hearty Russet accounts for only 20 percent of Wong's harvest. They've been replaced by pricier purple, red and yellow potatoes, and even organically grown potatoes are gaining in popularity.

Chin said he plans far in advance, so he long ago set aside portions of his 900-acre spread and prepared the soil for organic produce by planting nitrogen-rich peas or mustard so that he can grow organic onions and potatoes. The only problem, he said, is that organics are often less resistance to things like nematodes and disease. But it's worth it, Chin says with a grin. He says organic product can bring 30 percent more profit.

It's difficult to tell sometimes how much of Wong's operation is science, and how much is business. But from seed to soil to the market, Chin says, "It's mostly business."

Chin's business savvy is what has kept Wong's able to employ 50 men and women year around for decades. In an age where job security is as fleeting as a Bigfoot sighting, some Wong's employees have been at work for 40 years or more. That's four decades of knowing where they'll be this time next year, that they'll have steady work and that they'll be able to feed, cloth and house themselves and their kids. Predictability. Reliability. Knowing how many futures contracts he'll have, how much he'll make and how many extra employees he'll have to hire during the busy harvest months. That's the key to success, Chin said.

Which leads to water, Chin said - because without it, everything comes to a halt. He agrees that the recent Klamath Water Settlement is a good thing - at least good for on-project users. It was a grass-roots effort he said, instead of a top-down pronouncement coming from federal and state government agencies.

"How do you live by those decisions?" he wondered.

He prefers an agreement among peers - and that includes the Indian tribes, he said.
Finally, there is the issue of finding other markets. For example, you can grow all the potatoes and onions in the world, but without stable markets, what's the point?

"NAFTA and Mexico ," he said, "They're coming up with protocols - things like phytosanitary rules. It's just politics."

But the North American Free Trade Agreement - while on the surface in the late 1990s a seemingly good thing - has been squeezed lately. For example, instead of allowing Chin to sell his potatoes throughout all of Mexico , the agreement now only allows him to sell 26 kilometers - a little over 16 miles - into the country.

"The agreement was that, by now, we should be able to sell all the way into Mexico ," Chin said.

So much for free trade, he figures. He'll have to settle for domestic markets --or at least less-regulated ones. No big deal. Because if Wong's Potatoes keeps doing what they're doing, they'll always be the right potato for a hungry world.

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