In a province where potato is king, Marvin Webster is committed to making those spuds as clean as possible.
For Webster, whose family grows 650 acres for the processing sector on his farm on the Blue Shank Road under the corporate name Valley Grove Farms, it is a case of necessity being the mother of invention. He explained major processors across North America have encountered problems with debris in shipments taken to their plants. That debris can be anything from rocks to golf balls to (in rare cases) decaying animals. Many processors in other areas are now demanding all raw product brought to their plants be washed. While neither Cavendish Farms or McCain’s are asking that of Island growers, Webster is convinced it is just a matter of time.
To help himself and other growers prepare for that eventuality, Webster has obtained funding from the PEI ADAPT Council (which administers the Canadian Adaptation and Rural Development Fund in the province for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) to develop a mobile washer. He is now working with Bernard’s Welding in Chelton on the design and manufacture of the product.
He explained many growers have warehouses spread out over a considerable distance and it doesn’t make economic sense to have the potatoes trucked to one location to be washed. In his own case, there are three warehouses on the Blue Shank Road and another in Port Hill. Webster explained much of the technology he is using has been around for some time – what he is trying to do is modify it to travel.
The first point of entry for the spuds into the new machine would be a flume system to help sort out rocks and other debris. While such systems on stationary equipment are often 15-20 feet long, he has already been able to shorten it to four feet. The concept then calls for the spuds to go into a drum washer and then dried off to the point where they could be shipped under winter conditions. He explained if a potato is shipped dripping wet in winter, there is a possibility of freezing. The potatoes would then go to a grading table, where any debris missed could be sorted out.
Depending on the crop, if there was an abundance of smaller sized potatoes, they could also be taken out at that time. Webster said the machine could be moved from warehouse to warehouse as the shipment was being loaded. He said the manufacturer has already received some inquiries about when the technology will be on the market, “but we have a lot of work to do yet.”
Webster said the machine would not be needed on the farm everyday, so it would present a chance for a number of producers in a given geographical area to purchase the equipment on a collective basis.
“I know in our case, we ship in June-July and again in November-December,” he said. “The rest of the time we wouldn’t need it.” Webster said he and the manufacturer are now working out the final design and they will then build a prototype for testing. “We are quite a piece from commercial development yet, but I am pleased to see there is a fair bit of interest from growers,” he said. “This could be marketed both on Prince Edward Island and in other potato growing areas since all processing growers are facing the same type of problems.”
(This is one of a series of articles prepared by the PEI Agricultural Awareness Committee and funded by the PEI ADAPT Council and other partners to highlight new and innovative developments in the province's farming community.)