10 March 2021
|
Potato and onion battle it out in Oregon
THE Oregon Potato Commission in the US has been working for a couple of years to get its product recognised as the state vegetable.
Executive Director Gary Roth said in a recent interview with local media outlet OPB: “There are only 110 calories in a medium-sized potato. And yet they are packed full of nutritionally dense complex carbohydrates,” he said. “They’re cholesterol-free. They’re packed full of iron. They have more vitamin C than a grapefruit and more potassium than a banana.”
He firmly believes the potato should be the official state vegetable.
“There are more than 250 agricultural and food products, grown, raised and harvested in Oregon. And out of those 250, potatoes rank No. 8 overall and they are by far the most widely grown vegetable,” he said.
He added that potatoes return more than $200 million a year to farmers. Local onion farmer Mark Owens has also applied to make onion the state vegetable, but Gary said onions return half the revenue that potatoes do and are 11th on the commodities rankings.
