About

Dear folks, I wish to welcome you to Potato News Today! I sincerely appreciate you visiting here, and I hope you will find it to be worthwhile. I can assure you that I do my honest and utmost best to publish sensible, breaking potato news stories on this site as soon as it comes to my attention. Potato News Today is edited, published and maintained by me, Lukie Pieterse.

In some way or another, the potato crop has dominated the better part of my professional career for the past 40 years – roughly 35 years, to be exact. I had the good fortune to be able to run my own 2,500-acre farming operation in South Africa starting in 1987. The potato section of my farm was used to grow drip-irrigated potatoes for some of the major potato processors, including McCain Foods, Frito-Lay, and Heinz.

When I made the decision to immigrate to Canada in 1996, I essentially sacrificed my farming operation so that my two lovely children – who were still infants at the time – would have the opportunity to grow up and live in one of the most civilized countries in the world. I have never regretted that decision, but I must admit that I still miss my potato operation dearly to this day…

Here in Canada I launched a potato consulting business, since I could not “relocate” my potato operation, of course. However, I did get involved in a number of regional and global potato-related projects throughout the years, and also ventured into the world of online and print potato publications.

In late 1996 I launched the first and only online news portal devoted to potatoes on the Internet at that time. I have been publishing potato related information on numerous other websites ever since.

Potato News Today is a “modern-day” version of that first bare-bones website of 26 years ago (when we still uploaded content to websites via the age-old “dial-up” connection). I launched Potato News Today in 2014.

I am humbled and grateful to have had the opportunity to meet so many dedicated and wonderful potato folks online in a great many countries around the world where potatoes are produced – I sincerely appreciate that.

Folks, any and all of you are most welcome to get in touch with me at any time if you wish? Please feel free to send along news and information about your potato operation, your company or your potato organization that you belong to – I will be happy to review it for publication here on Potato News Today, as well as my social media channels Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. We reach thousands of potato folks across the world on a daily basis.

I offer companies an opportunity to introduce and promote their products and services to this site’s visitors in a number of ways – have a peek at this page, and feel free to get in touch with me for further details. We have many loyal potato folks around the world who regularly take the time to pay Potato News Today a visit.

Thanks again for your time for visiting Potato News Today, and kindest wishes from the east coast of Canada!
Lukie
lukie@potatonewstoday.com