New Players Are Cutting Into Potato Markets

In many ways, 2026 is picking up where the 2025 season left off for Washington potato growers; great growing conditions, but many unanswered questions outside of the field. One of those issues of growing concerns; overseas competition.

“What we're seeing is a tremendous amount of competition coming out of China and India, really heavily right now out of China," said Chris Voigt, Executive Director of the Washington State Potato Commission. "And that's kind of cutting into some of our business in our traditional markets in the Pacific Rim. So, you know, we're seeing our exports down roughly about 10%. Which is significant for us.”

China Understands The Value Of Potatoes

Voigt noted for years, potato growers rationed their product to those overseas customers, because American producers couldn’t keep up with demand.

“But China has really kind of cut into that. You know, they've recognized that potato growing is a very sustainable crop for them," Voigt continued. "You know, comparing to rice, for example, they get four times the amount of food growing potatoes than they can growing rice. So that means less land that needed to produce food. They also, potatoes is only one-tenth of the water that's required for rice. And then per unit of nitrogen, you can get twice as much food growing potatoes than you can rice per unit of nitrogen. And so it's a highly sustainable crop and they've recognized that.”

Voigt added over the past decade, China has made large investments in potato research with a goal of not only improving production but yields as well. And while the quality may not be that of American potatoes, the cost is quite a bit less, which cuts into market share along the Pacific Rim.