They're in the middle of harvest season
CORNELL --
The owners of Hanson Seed Farm in Cornell are fourth generation potato farmers. According to them, this summer was one of the driest ones in the last ten summers. So far it looks to be an average yield for potatoes this season.
But Scott Hanson, the owner of Hanson Seed Farm, thinks it'll be a little better than last year.
They make between 12 and 18 cents on a pound of potatoes. Hanson says that's pretty good.
“Our biggest customers are in southern Michigan,” explains Hanson. “There are probably about 5 growers down there that buy about 80 semi loads of seed potatoes from us."
The majority of those customers grow potatoes to be made into potato chips; others are shipped to supermarkets, and the oversized spuds are sold to the Newberry and Kinross Prisons.
They grow more than 7 million pounds of potatoes every year on the 230-acre potato farm.
Hanson's great grandfather started growing potatoes in the 1920s.
The farm employ six to eight seasonal workers, but mostly it's a family operation, and this makes his dad, Dennis, especially proud.
“You have a tendency to pass it on to the next generation,” said Dennis Hanson. “It's a real positive aspect. You work your whole life and you get to see your kids benefit from it."
But the benefits of this potato production are widespread.
“The potato industry in the Upper Peninsula is one of our biggest cash crops,” said Warren Schauer, MSU Extension Agriculture and District Extension Educator. "So it's a very important industry for agriculture in the Upper Peninsula."
And buying directly from farms can also help customers, like the prisons, cut down on costs.
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