No substantial progress has been made in the first month of 2022 to lift the ban on exports of Prince Edward Island potatoes to the U.S.

Despite a long-term potato wart management plan that’s been in force for 20 years, the Americans have requested their own pest risk assessment of potato wart due to detections in two PEI fields. Part of their concern is that the CFIA cancelled certificates for PEI seed exports to Uruguay in October 2021, a month before banning exports to the U.S.  

The frustration with Canadian public officials is palpable in a letter to the editor of the Charlottetown Guardian authored by Boyd Rose, a past chair of the PEI Potato Board. “How about you come pull with us on our end of the rope instead of at the very best, standing and watching us pull,” he wrote on January 8.

“There is no credible science on God’s green earth that would tell us there is any risk to shipping washed, sprout-inhibited potatoes to anywhere in the world from non-restricted PEI fields as we have done for the last 20 years,” he continued. 

In his letter, Rose pointed out that the U.S. is trying to get full access for fresh potatoes in Mexico, a process that would require washing and “sprout nipping” potatoes. In coincidental timing, that’s exactly the news announced at the National Potato Council’s annual expo in California. Kam Quarles, CEO of NPC announced a breakthrough in shipping to Mexico in a convention podcast. (Link here: https://bit.ly/3IrU0Kc). 

Back in Canada, potato growers are anxious about the window narrowing for the disposal of surplus potatoes in cold winter temperatures. As of January 22, no potatoes had been destroyed. 

“PEI growers are waiting for a better deal than the federal compensation offer of 4.25 cents/pound to destroy potatoes that would have been exported to the U.S,” says Greg Donald, general manager, PEI Potato Board. “We’re going to snowblow potatoes back on the fields so that the potatoes can decompose in an environmentally-responsible way, but we’re loathe to do that at such a depressed price.”

As Rose concludes, “Most Island potato farms have no physical or other connection to the two infected farms, our potatoes do not have wart, but we are all suffering.”