From AP and staff reports

DELHI — ConAgra Foods Inc. will spend $155 million to build a sweet potato processing plant near Delhi in northeastern Louisiana with an initial payroll of 275 workers and plans that could expand it to 500.

Omaha, Neb.-based ConAgra said Wednesday the plant will process high-quality sweet potatoes from the area into fries and other food products. The plant is scheduled to open in November 2010.

If growth plans are met, the plant, about 40 miles from Vicksburg, could eventually employ 500, ConAgra said. State economic development secretary Stephen Moret said the jobs will pay $34,000 to $35,000 a year plus benefits.

Effects on the job market and economic development are expected to spread throughout the region, Warren County Port Commission executive director Wayne Mansfield said.

“If it comes to fruition, we’ll expect positive effects,” Mansfield said. “We are a regional economy and Vicksburg serves as a regional service hub for these outlying areas, so certainly Warren County people will go to work there. If you have something that large, it increases the need for spinoff.”

ConAgra’s Lamb Weston division, which is involved in sweet potato production for grocery store sales and several large restaurant chains, will operate the plant. ConAgra said sweet potato consumption has risen 21 percent over the past five years.

Louisiana farmers raised 2.7 million bushels of sweet potatoes worth $27.3 million last year, according to the LSU AgCenter. That included 1.5 million bushels for canning, worth $9.6 million.

The plant will be built from scratch with modern processing and packaging technologies and will have such environmental features as water conservation and lower energy usage, ConAgra said. The plant will have natural lighting and minimally irrigated landscaping, the company said.