Potato alternatives

MOSES LAKE — It's not every day a keynote speaker offers the proviso that he is "weird as hell."

Yet that's exactly how Lowell Catlett opened his presentation, "Tomorrow's Agriculture: Six Trends You Can't Afford To Miss," an hour-long speech that was often punctuated by the laughter of the attending audience as he offered several alternative approaches the potato industry could pursue for their products. Catlett's speech was the keynote during the Washington State Potato Conference.

Catlett, regents professor at New Mexico State University, indicated to the audience he is not alone in his weirdness, as times have changed from previous generations. People today have much more disposable income to spend, spending very little on actual food, and more on expensive vehicles, entertainment, pets and health.

"You're not spending much of your income to eat, so guess what?" he asked. "You've got disposable income, we're buying all kinds of weird stuff with it … Could agriculture, could food get some of that back, and the answer is, 'Yes.'"

Catlett pointed at several establishments where food has become an experience people pay for. At one restaurant in Austin, Texas, customers purchase their food fresh and have it cooked on site for them and can eat it there. The owner there, Catlett said, told him if people want purple, red or different varieties of potatoes, he would line up producers and have 100 varieties to pick from.

Another restaurant has revised California cuisine by paying producers double or triple the market price, because when she prepares a dish for her exclusive clientele, it makes little difference to her how much she pays for the agricultural product in the dish.

"Her restaurant alone supports 300 full-time farmers, 600 part-time farmers, because guess what?" Catlett said. "They understand the concept of 'We don't spend jack to eat, we can get some of it back.' Money changes people, folks … Never in the history of the world has so much idle cash existed in the world."

As health becomes a rising concern for many people, in a time when the age of 60 is considered "the new 30," Catlett said, potatoes, with reports that continually point to increasing health benefits, also have many opportunities.

Catlett included in his presentation information about increasing use of radio frequency identification technology, or RFID. In anecdotes, he shared how the technology can be used to enable RFID tags in different aspects of a vehicle to call the police or hospital in the event of an accident, or to have an air conditioner change temperature to accommodate the body temperature needs of a pet.

If those needs can be met, he said, think of what the technology can do for moisture and fertilizer levels in the agriculture industry.

"You will build a system like you never dreamed possible," he said, referring to neutrogenomics, in which industries are learning one individual has different biochemical responses to food than another, or what Catlett called prescription food.

"That means we don't have the asinine stupidity called no carbohydrate diets," Catlett said. "We find out what you need for your DNA profile, and you produce, with potatoes, the food source that each succeeding scientists proves … is one of the most healthy things on the planet, that every year we find out is more so."

In a time when health sells, Catlett said, agriculture will build the link between food and medicine. With sensors, he added, potato growers will be able to prove the plants they raise are providing an ecological service and producing oxygen. In Australia, growers have already received tax credits for the ecological service they provide, he added.

"Potatoes are not just about feeding a hungry world," he said. "You have done that remarkably well. And in this new world, it's about prescription food, it's about making them part of our health, it's about linking them to the environment. And if you do that, you will make more money than you can ever count."

Moses Lake resident Carl Henrickson said he found the speech entertaining and thought-provoking.

"I definitely think he was encouraging us to use our imaginations, think outside the box," Henrickson said. "To that extent, I think it was a very effective speech, because we get used to doing things the same old way, and thinking about things the same old way. Sometimes, we just need to look at it from a different perspective."

Ephrata resident John Morris had a list to describe the speech.

"Very humorous, very enlightening, very thought-provoking, very futuristic," he said, adding it's hard to tell if he'd be able to use anything from it. "We'll just wait and see. If we get RFID chips in our potatoes, we'll find out. The future's probably already here."

"(He) was a motivating speaker, and presented some new concepts of the agriculture and where the world's going," said Moses Lake resident Henry Michael of Catlett. "I think it was good for not only the growers to hear, but the attendees at the conference. I think this concept of tax credit for the carbon dioxide use, it's not going to happen tomorrow, but it's a concept that maybe has got some merits."