The Potato Diversion Program (PDP) is a USDA program under which farmers are paid to divert potatoes to charitable institutions, livestock feed, ethanol production, and/or render them nonmarketable and destroyed. The most recent program was for 2000 crop fresh russet potatoes with expenditures limited to $10.25 million. There also was a 1997 program to divert fresh Irish round white and russet potatoes to charitable institutions or for use as livestock feed. The program is administered by the

Agricultural Marketing Service The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture; it maintains programs in five commodity areas: cotton and tobacco; dairy; fruit and vegetable; livestock and seed; and poultry. These programs ...

and implemented in the field by the

Farm Service Agency The Farm Service Agency (FSA) is the United States Department of Agriculture agency that was formed by merging the farm loan portfolio and staff of the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) and the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service ...

. The objective of PDP is to reduce supplies and raise farm prices.

References

* {{CRS, article = Report for Congress: Agriculture: A Glossary of Terms, Programs, and Laws, 2005 Edition, url = http://ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/05jun/97-905.pdf, author= Jasper Womach United States Department of Agriculture