Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler sits down each week with Southern Farm Network’s Rhonda Garrison to discuss “Today’s Topic.”
Commercial growers of Irish potatoes in nine northeastern North Carolina counties will vote this month on renewing an assessment program that supports promotional and research work of the N.C. Potato Association.
Official ballots will be mailed March 15 to eligible potato growers in Beaufort, Camden, Carteret, Currituck, Hyde, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Tyrrell and Washington counties. Ballots must be returned by March 28 to the Northeast Marketing Center at P.O. Box 2066, Elizabeth City, NC 27906.
Farmers will vote on whether to approve a new six-year assessment program. The plan must be approved by a two-thirds majority of voters in order for it to continue. State law requires a referendum on the assessment program to be held every three to six years.
Potato growers currently pay 1 cent per hundredweight of potatoes sold. Growers will be voting on whether to continue the same 1-cent assessment through 2017. Funds are collected by the NCDA&CS and turned over to the N.C. Potato Association’s Board of Directors. The money is then administered by the board, which is composed of growers representing counties in the assessment program area.
Click below to listen to Commissioner Troxler and Rhonda talk about the referendum and North Carolina’s Irish potato industry.
[Audio:http://info.ncagr.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Troxler_3-13.mp3 |titles=Today’s Topic for March 13]
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