The Potato Mystery

Newspapers in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and way stations ran scare stories about the most unthinkable food shortage yet, a black market to end all black markets. This time it was potatoes. With other food shortages already makin dinner planning a hollow mockery (see cut), outraged housewives wanted to know why this latest outrage. How could the U.S. be out of potatoes?

The U.S. was not out of potatoes, but there was, at the moment, a shortage: 1) half the Florida crop froze last fortnight; 2) the Army took over half the Idaho crop and big fractions of Oregon's, Nebraska's and Maine's; 3) Maine shippers were short of refrigerator cars; 4) OPA's ceilings, as usual, did not apply to growers. And many growers held out for prices too high to give wholesalers any margin at all. As a result of these factors, the public took to sporadic--and senseless--hoarding.

March and April are usually small potato months, since they fall between the two growing seasons. But this time potatoes were so scarce that the Department of Agriculture considered making a public appeal to U.S. spud-eaters to leave the skins on (Agriculture experts allege that 21% of a potato is wasted when it is peeled). OPA stewed over a possible realignment of ceiling prices. But unless bad weather makes things worse, potato prospects should get brighter by early summer: the 1943 production goal is 3,260,000 acres, 17% above last year's high level. By June, the Agriculture Department may be urging consumers to eat lots more potatoes--with or without their jackets.

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