In April the Missouri Dept. of Agriculture informed us that we had been awarded a specialty crop grant to increase potato production specifically to meet the increased demand by the new farm to school local food program for the Maplewood Richmond Heights School District. Please see the article about our application for the grant in the Winter 2009 edition of our newsletter. The grant year will run from July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010. We are in the process of buying a D-10T one-row potato digger from US Small Farm Equipment of Torrington, WY. Go to www.ussmallfarm.com for information. Hopefully we can display the digger at the Small Farm Trade Show and Conference in Columbia during the first weekend in November. On Sept. 22, I will travel to Milk Ranch Specialty Potatoes in Austin, CO to help make a training video regarding the efficient use of the digger. The video will cover planting, cultivating, harvesting, and postharvest handling. Milk Ranch has been supplying many of our members with seed potatoes for a number of years. We will use the video at training events such as our annual conference and make it available to individuals. If you would like to begin growing potatoes or would like to increase your level of production, please contact me at jrwstc@aol.com.