Potatoes are a basic food in the United States and foreign countries. They are produced by many individual potato growers in every State in the United States and imported into the United States from foreign countries. In 1966, there were one million four hundred and ninety-seven thousand acres of cropland in the United States devoted to the production of potatoes. Potatoes and potato products move in the channels of interstate or foreign commerce, and potatoes which do not move in such channels directly burden or affect interstate commerce in potatoes and potato products. The maintenance and expansion of existing potato markets and the development of new or improved markets are vital to the welfare of potato growers and those concerned with marketing, using, and processing potatoes as well as the general economic welfare of the Nation. Therefore, it is the declared policy of the Congress and the purpose of this chapter that it is essential in the public interest, through the exercise of the powers provided herein, to authorize the establishment of an orderly procedure for the financing, through adequate assessments on all potatoes harvested in the United States for commercial use and imported into the United States from foreign countries, and the carrying out of an effective and continuous coordinated program of research, development, advertising, and promotion designed to strengthen potatoes’ competitive position, and to maintain and expand domestic and foreign markets for potatoes and potato products.

(Pub. L. 91–670, title III, § 302, Jan. 11, 1971, 84 Stat. 2041; Pub. L. 101–624, title XIX, § 1936, Nov. 28, 1990, 104 Stat. 3865.)