Farmers reeling due to potato politics

Given our increased awareness of the importance of food security, the image of a farmer running millions of pounds of perfectly good seed potatoes through a snowblower is a disturbing one.

But that’s exactly the sort of scene P.E.I. potato farmers say they’re preparing for now that Canada has stopped potato exports to the United States.

The reason? Synchytrium endobioticum — potato wart, a fungus that can ruin crops and be spread to other jurisdictions through exports.

But growing and monitoring practices have vastly improved in recent years and farmers have harnessed science to better control the pathogen.

Since 2000, P.E.I. has had potato wart protocols and a rigorous management plan in place that allow any instances of wart to be identified and isolated and kept out of the export pool.

The recent detection involves only two fields that were being closely surveilled, and yet on Nov. 21, federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau shut down the tuber trade to the U.S. for an undermined period.

Just as an export ban on Nova Scotia lobster, New Brunswick pulp and paper products or Newfoundland and Labrador snow crab would mean millions of dollars in losses for harvesters and producers, P.E.I. potato farmers are expecting to see months of toil and hard-earned revenues written off.

Potatoes are the agricultural backbone of P.E.I.’s economy, representing more than 5,000 jobs a year.

Farmer owners like Willem VanNieuwenhuyzen in Mount Albion — who has already sent staff home because of the export ban — can’t afford to just let the chips falls where they may.

He exports more than half of his organic potatoes to the U.S. and sees what’s happening now as pure potato politics. He figures Canada’s ban was a preemptive strike to keep the United States from closing its borders to Canadian spuds, which it was threatening to do. He understands the rationale, but that doesn’t lessen the financial blow.

The thinking is that Canada is trying to maintain a measure of control. If the U.S. closed its border to P.E.I. potatoes, it could do so for as long as it likes — and potatoes are big business south of the border, worth nearly $4 billion last year.

It’s no surprise the U.S. National Potato Council is praising Canada for halting exports.

“The U.S. potato industry appreciates (the Canadian Food Inspection Agency) for acting quickly and recognizing the dire threat to the U.S. and Canadian potato industries should potato wart be spread beyond P.E.I.,” said potato council president and Maine potato grower Dominic LaJoie.

A U.S. ban on P.E.I. potatoes 20 years ago was nasty and divisive.

“It’s 100 per cent political,” VanNieuwenhuyzen said. “Everything (in P.E.I.) was done according to the book.” Unfortunately, it appears science and judicious monitoring have been trumped by politics, leaving farmers with nothing left to harvest but a terrible uncertainty.