U.S. sweetpotato harvested acreage rose by 23,300 acres in 2024 to 148,200, according to the USDA. And Kay Rentzel, executive director of the Dillsburg, Pa.-based U.S. Sweetpotato Council Inc., said 2025’s acreage is expected to be similar to last year’s.
North Carolina, Mississippi and California continue to be the leading U.S. producers of sweetpotatoes.
In North Carolina, Wilson-based Vick Family Farms is celebrating 50 years, said Charlotte Vick, partner.
The founders of Vick Family Farms began farming on 25 acres.
“We are proud of this milestone and have celebrations planned for later this year,” she said.
The company broke ground last year for a new storage facility that should be in operation when new-crop potatoes arrive in the fall. The new crop will start planting in May, but the company has sweetpotatoes stored in controlled-atmosphere buildings year-round.
The company also will install new labeling machines soon. Currently, potatoes are hand-labeled, which adds to the costs of the item, Vick said. Automating the process will help relieve some stress on the shed with the increase in sales.
Although 2024 produced a nice crop of sweetpotatoes in North Carolina, some areas had an abundance of smaller potatoes and reduced yields, Vick said.
“Weather in 2024 was the culprit, having a drought early in the growing season, then lots of rain later,” she said. “Areas reported from a 10% to 50% reduction in yields.”
USDA said the state’s harvested acreage rose to 86,500, up from 76,900 in 2023, but yields dropped to 150 cwt per acre, down from 195 cwt per acre.
Growers in Mississippi have tried to capitalize on the diminished yields in North Carolina this season, said Lorin Harvey, sweetpotato specialist at Mississippi State University, Starkville.
Although the USDA reported that yields in Mississippi were down for the 2024 crop, Harvey said, “I don’t believe that to be the case.”
The official numbers from USDA were 120 cwt for 2024 and 125 in 2023.
Harvey said harvested acreage should be the same or more this year than last year’s 31,500 acres, which was up from 29,000 acres in 2023.
“[Acreage] might increase as people try to spread out the risk, or it might decrease as people try cut back production costs,” he said.
In California, Livingston-based AV Thomas ships sweetpotatoes year-round but had sold out of its specialty Stokes purple sweetpotatoes and Ben Yagi variety early this year, said Jeremy Fookes, director of sales.
The company still had its four primary varieties on hand: red, orange, white and Japanese sweetpotatoes.
The company was finishing its hotbeds in mid-March. That’s where it grows transplants that will produce cuttings to be planted six or eight weeks later for its sweetpotato crop, which will be harvested 90 to 120 days later, Fookes said.
The 2024 storage crop still was putting out good quality, he said.
“We had a good farming year,” Fookes said. “We were able to get the potatoes out of the ground before inclement weather hit, and we were able to put strong potatoes into our storage facilities.”
AV Thomas plans to plant the same number of acres this year as it did last year, he said.
Organic sweetpotatoes also are popular among some consumers.
Vick Family Farms offers organic product in its Natural Gold-branded label, Vick said.
“Those sales have grown a lot the last couple years,” she said.
Mississippi only has about 200 acres of organic sweetpotatoes, Harvey said.
They’re grown by farmers who want to complement their conventional sweetpotato programs.
“It rounds out your portfolio,” Harvey said.
AV Thomas is the largest organic sweetpotato grower-packer-shipper in U.S., Fookes said.
Organic sales have been holding steady, but they might be dipping slightly because one major supermarket chain is cutting back its organic program, he said.
Organic sweetpotatoes are especially important on the processing side for infant and toddler food, said Rentzel of the U.S. Sweetpotato Council. Organic sales went through a bit of a lull during the COVID-19 pandemic, she said, but sales seem to be improving.
“That’s a good thing for the industry,” she said.
Sweetpotato prices have risen slightly, but grower-shippers say not enough to keep up with their costs.
“Our costs to grow the crop have gone up significantly,” Vick said.
Labor has been the main reason, but she said other input costs also contributed to the increase.
“We are concerned about labor rates for 2025 because all of the sweetpotato growing areas have increased H-2A rates,” she said.
Costs also have been problematic for AV Thomas.
“Prices have been a pain point for the grower community for a few years in a row,” Fookes said.
“The industry has really tried to vocalize to the buyer community that the cost of production has outpaced the price increases the industry has been able to negotiate with vendor partners,” he added.
But that could be changing.
“I do feel that the customer has been a little bit more receptive to negotiating prices that are more sustainable for continued growth or at least maintaining existing production levels,” Fookes said.
