A standby vegetable I can count on to remain fresh in my pantry for a long time is the potato, thanks to the science in growing these tubers. Who doesn’t love mashed potatoes, twice-baked potatoes or potato soup? It seems potatoes have gotten a bad rap because of French fries and chips; potatoes actually are an amazing source of potassium and are important to heart health when you keep them out of the fryer. 

         Such was pointed out to me by a man very passionate about potatoes, when I talked with John Halverson of Black Gold Farms in North Dakota. They farm across 10 states and have about 35,000 acres of potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, wheat and soybeans.

         John, along with his brother, a sister and their dad, own Black Gold Farms, and they are one of the largest chip suppliers in the U.S. Black Gold also sells sweet potatoes and red potatoes to large retailers in consumer packs throughout the States.   

         When I asked John how such a large operation with 200 employees could be a family farm, he was quick to respond.  “We are absolutely a family farm and have been since 1928. It’s what we do.”

         His passion for farming was evident, as was the fact that freshness of a potato begins long before it arrives at a grocery store. The best preservative for a table potato is a tough skin, accomplished through the science of farming.

         He described the complex business of growing potatoes across 11 farms, starting with the seed potato. “Potatoes take a whole lot of seed, about – an average of about 2,500 pounds per acre, depending on the variety and region. The seed is stored 36-38 degrees Fahrenheit to keep it dormant and then a machine cuts the seed potato into 2.2 ounce pieces.”  Believe it or not, the seeds are treated with a fir bark material to help their wounds heal, piled on the ground with blown air to warm them up and then planted several days later.

         It can take potatoes 50 days to come out of the ground since the seeds aren’t as physiologically aged as seeds you may plant in your garden. However, when they do come up potatoes grow fast – they go from peeking through the soil to covering the ground in two or three weeks.

         Water is an important part of growing healthy potatoes, but they are a very sustainable crop, according to John. Black Gold Farms use center pivot irrigation (the kind that makes circles) to irrigate often, but with a lesser amount of water than row crops.

         Black Gold Farms believe in label integrity and maintain a zero tolerance policy for using products “off label” (at different rates or mixtures than those approved by EPA).  “The truth is easy to defend” John said as he explained they shut down a chip plant in Texas. “We needed to harvest two days earlier than what was labeled for grass herbicide that was applied. We made the decision to not deliver them to the plant and maintain our label integrity.”

Read more at  Food Truths from Farm to Table to arm yourself with 25 truths you urgently need to know about food so you can shop without guilt, confusion, or judgment. A new book, Food Bullying, releases November 5 to upend the way you think about eating choices.