Funding research, educating public among jobs of potato commissions

KENNEWICK — Look at the pictures, and farming seems timeless: tractors and dramatic sunsets and all that. But like all other industries, farming is subject to change – and in the last half-century those changes have been big ones. Potato farmers, like farmers and growers in every other agriculture sector, have had to adapt and change with the times. There are visible signs of changing times. Rob Wagstaff’s family has operated a farm near Nyssa, Oregon for generations. Wagstaff, a member of the Oregon Potato Commission, keeps track of his acreage, and the map is dotted with the names of the people who used to farm that land. “We go to our acreage map, and we have about 53 that we have got from different people,” he said. “You’ve got 50 families that used to be there that aren’t there anymore.”