Ron Offutt, aka Sultan of Spuds & the Lord of the Fries, grows more potatoes than anyone else in the world. The potatoes are perfect for French fries for fast food chains like McDonald's and frozen French fry processors like JR Simplot and Ore Ida. But Offutt’s success has a downside. Many people who live near Offutt's potato farms worry about the pesticides sprayed on his fields.....but they soon find they're up against a system much bigger than they are.
This is the second in a two-part report.
Click links below for other report:
part 1: https://archive.mpr.org/stories/1999/09/27/fry-king-spud-kings-success-comes-at-a-price-part-1
Awarded:
2000 MNSPJ Page One Award, first place in Radio – In Depth category
2000 National Headliner Award, first place in Outstanding Public Service category
Transcripts
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MARY LOZIER: Americans love French fries, but growing the potatoes that make them has an environmental price. Potatoes for the french fry market must be supersized and flawless. They need large doses of many different types of pesticides all summer long. Most people never see the planes and helicopters that spray those chemicals, but they've become part of everyday life for people who live near Ron Offutt's potato fields. Red Otterman is a retiree who lives in Otter Tail County in Western Minnesota.
RED OTTERMAN: Helicopters and airplanes are flying over here every day. It sounds like we're being strafed a lot of times. Now I know that they're doing something good for the potato farmer, but I'm not a potato farmer, I'm an ex mechanic. And right now, I'm concerned with the health, the health of myself and my family and people around us.
CHARLIE BRUSS: Yeah, it scares the tar out of me.
MARY LOZIER: Charlie Bruss lives on Clitherall Lake in Otter Tail County. The R.D. Offutt Company began growing potatoes near his home a few years ago.
CHARLIE BRUSS: You can be out here walking in the road and all of a sudden, here comes the plane. Boom. What are you going to do?
The plane is coming--
[PLANE ENGINE ROARING]
--right over my head. [INAUDIBLE]
MARY LOZIER: When spray planes began flying near their homes, people who lived along the lake shore took videos like this one and began organizing. So the company switched from planes to helicopters in some places. Helicopters are quieter than planes, but the spraying continued, and people soon found out there wasn't much they could do about it. The law did not protect them. The federal and state laws that govern pesticides for agriculture do not prevent aerial spraying near homes, lakeshores, or towns. Pesticide applicators are required to follow the directions on the label, but the labels didn't prevent the aerial spraying either.
Terry Colton owns a resort on Clitherall Lake. He says people often don't know what's being sprayed. He's especially worried about an insecticide called Monitor 4.
TERRY COLTON: During public hearings, Offutt representatives stated that after spraying Monitor 4 in the field, they wouldn't walk through the fields for three days at least. Because it comes in contact with your skin and is bled into your body through your skin. So that's how devastating this chemical can be.
MARY LOZIER: People in Otter Tail County can't pass local ordinances to stop the spraying. People in nearby Hubbard County tried that in 1992. That year, a young couple came to the Mantrap Township Board for help. The couple lived between two of Offutt's potato fields. They were worried about the spray drifting into their yard. Judy Olson was Chair of the Township Board.
JUDY OLSON: The children's toys that were outside would be covered with this substance, their windows would be covered, any clothing on the lines, anything on the outside, of course, would get this sticky substance on it. And she was fearful for the children because they were quite small at the time.
MARY LOZIER: So the board passed a local ordinance to restrict the aerial spraying of pesticides. Offutt and the state's licensed commercial pesticide applicators sued the Township. The Township lost. They appealed and lost again. Judy Olson of the Township Board says people finally gave up.
JUDY OLSON: People just basically backed off because they knew they didn't have the money that the farms did and that they wouldn't have a chance anyway.
MARY LOZIER: The Minnesota Department of Agriculture is the state agency charged with regulating pesticides. When Offutt sued the Township, the AG Department joined in on the side of Offutt and the commercial pesticide applicators. Offutt's opponents in other states say they've seen the same kind of obstacles.
SPEAKER 1: Everybody that's traveling County D right now is being exposed. I was dumb enough to roll down the window and lean out into the wind to film this.
MARY LOZIER: People near the small town of Durand, Wisconsin, took videos like this one when the R.D. Offutt Company moved into their neighborhood in the early 1990s. Helen Keyes was one of the leaders of the opposition. She says in the beginning hundreds of people turned out. Now she's about the only one who hasn't given up.
HELEN KEYES: The movement basically died because there was nothing we could do legally, politically to stop the aerial spraying.
MARY LOZIER: Another obstacle for Offutt's opponents is that he has the support of many local government officials who represent farm interests. Offutt pays high prices for the land he buys and rents from local farmers.
He's also demonstrated his influence at the state level. He went directly to then Governor Arne Carlson for approval of a controversial expansion of a french fry plant in Park Rapids, Lamb Weston RDO Frozen. RDO stands for Ron D. Offutt. He owns half the plant. Carlson announced the expansion before it had received the environmental permits it needed.
In Otter Tail County, resort owner Terry Colton says he's almost given up trying to stop the aerial spraying, but it still makes him angry.
TERRY COLTON: Well, I'd like to know what effect you think it would have on you if they sprayed your city parks. If they came to Bloomington with this plane in the morning at 5:00 in the morning and sprayed from 5:00 until 10:00 with a chemical unknown to you in Bloomington city parks, how long do you think that would last? We're taking a beating for being an experimental guinea pig up here is what's happening just so somebody can raise potatoes from the State of Washington to the State of Texas.
MARY LOZIER: Ron Offutt does raise potatoes from the State of Washington to the State of Texas. He farms more than 100,000 acres in 11 states. He calls the pesticide spraying unpleasant and an inconvenience for the public, but he says environmental hazards are part of any farming operation and the industry's track record is getting better. His company has been a leader in reducing the amount of fertilizer and pesticides used on potatoes for the french fry market.
RON OFFUTT: Yes, there's always a hazard. Yes, there's always issues. But today's agriculture is sensitized environmentally to the point that we're doing a lot better job than we did 10, 15, 20 years ago.
MARY LOZIER: Offutt says he grows the kind of potatoes the market demands. If he used fewer chemicals, his potatoes wouldn't make the perfect french fries Americans like. He says he may be able to reduce the amount of pesticides he uses in the future. Soon he hopes to grow genetically engineered potatoes that won't need so much spray.
RON OFFUTT: It would be my guess that in a half a dozen years or so that genetics will allow us not to have to spray and put on the pesticides that we are if genetically altered food becomes and stays acceptable to the American people.
MARY LOZIER: If the American public does want genetically engineered potatoes, R.D. Offutt will grow them. The market, not the people who live near his potato fields, will decide. I'm Mary Lozier, Minnesota Public Radio.