TAMPA, FL -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture released a revised January crop estimate Jan. 12 that shows a reduction in orange production of 3 million boxes, with damage totals from late December freezing weather yet to be tallied.

The new figures from the USDA show a drop from an original January estimate of 143 million boxes to 140 million boxes. Most of the reduction is due to smaller fruit size than anticipated rather than freeze losses.

Rising fuel costs, heightened freight rates and the natural course of national agricultural economics may be forcing a change in the country's potato business, observed Bob Johnson, president of Katz Produce Sales LLC in Rosholt, WI.

The nature of potato marketing and transportation this season reflect matters that will continue to impact the potato industry, Mr. Johnson said Jan. 12.

For a variety of reasons, the Wisconsin potato crop is short this winter.

In 1973, Glen Alsum began repacking potatoes in his 16-square-foot Friesland, WI, garage. Since then, the family business has steadily expanded. The firm was renamed Alsum Farms & Produce Inc. in September to reflect its widening involvement in the produce business.

Glen Alsum was killed in a plane crash in February 1981 and his third cousin, Larry Alsum, took over as general manager and owner in May 1981.

Winter storms in the northeastern United States and a freak ice and snowstorm in the Southeast in early January complicated trucking matters for Farmers Potato Exchange. But otherwise, the potato business for the grower- shipper in Antigo, WI, was good, according to the owner of the company, Dave Cofer.

He told The Produce News Jan. 12 that potato "movement has been pretty good. It's been kind of normal." Although truck supplies were “a big issue, business has been pretty normal.”

Within the potato industry, there is "absolutely a universal agreement that this winter and spring … the market will be strong and that prices will remain solid," according to Mike Carter, chief executive officer of Bushmans' Inc. in Rosholt, WI.

In mid-January, Okray Family Farms Inc. was packing russet potatoes only four days a week in a deliberate effort to slow shipping volume and lengthen the sales calendar for a short crop.

On Jan. 12, Mike Finnessy, a family owner (his mother was an Okray) of the grower-packer based in Plover, WI, indicated that Wisconsin's russet stocks on hand were down almost 1 million hundredweight over the previous year.

"Prices have been rising steadily, and we expect more increases as we go along," Mr. Finnessy said.