The southern Alberta farm is in its fourth generation, operated by brothers Ryland and Lyndon Nakamura. As they head into the growing season, they’re looking forward to another year of growing spuds and digging a bountiful harvest that will become potato chips and french fries.

Quality spuds recently earned them the North American Grower of the Year award from the processor, only the second time it’s been awarded to a Canadian operation and the first for a western Canadian farm. The husband and wife duo Gabriel Blouin and Marie-Josée Lepage of L’Île-d’Orléans of Quebec won in 2022.

The award recognizes potato quality and also the practices used to grow them. When the Nakamuras travelled to this year’s Frito Lay Potato Expo in Austin, Texas, they intended to meet other farmers and enjoy a few days of professional development. They ended up leaving with heavier suitcases.

As awards were handed out during the banquet evening, they sat at their table enjoying a beer. That’s when the emcee began to speak about the Grower of the Year. As a description of the farm was read, it became evident that Nakamura Farms was the subject.

“It was a pleasant surprise,” says Lyndon, adding it’s not an award solely for the brothers. The farm employs 45 people at high season who are critical to the farm’s success.

“It takes everybody, not just Ryland and myself, to plan, prepare and organize. It also comes down to the hands on deck and the boots on the ground that put it all into action. Everybody’s got a role to play at the end of the day. They play a part to make it all successful.”

The Nakamuras sell to five major processors in southern Alberta, including Frito-Lay. Their records must be precise and include everything from dates and times of field passes, crop protection applications, products and rates, even the number of times a field was scouted and what was found. It’s all logged for quality control purposes.

With huge commitments from potato and fry producers, such as regeneratively grown potatoes and sustainable metrics to market to consumers, the brothers know their farming practices are under a microscope. It doesn’t bother them one bit.

“We’ve been doing it for a long time,” says Lyndon of regenerative practices. “We’ve always cover cropped because we don’t want to lose topsoil.”

They lay down a multi-species blend of cover crops each year and focus heavily on fertility, reducing overall tillage, making space for wildlife habitats and doing what they can to improve biodiversity. They share field records with their processors, which also have high standards they must adhere to, in order to receive certain certifications.

They haul potatoes every two to three weeks year-round.

“You could just haul grain once in a while, but when you’re a potato farmer, you get to supply those plants year-round,” says Ryland. “There are spuds coming out of storage and then sometimes you’re digging fresh for a different plant at the same time.”

Having grown for Frito Lay for many years, the brothers value the relationship with the nearby processor and plan to continue doing business with them and the others indefinitely.

“There’s a lot of pride growing for Frito just based on their branding and their connection back to the farms,” says Lyndon. “There’s pride growing for all of them, but especially Frito Lay.”

He says the company keeps farmers in the loop about its production process, upcoming varieties and what next year will bring for demand and production needs.

The brothers’ biggest challenge this year will be Mother Nature. The last few years have been very dry. A mild winter and minimal snowpack have many in the region asking questions about water availability.

Their current water allocation is eight inches, half of what they’d typically require to produce quality potatoes. If they receive little or no rain, like they did in 2023, they’ll have to make tough decisions.

The priority is always potatoes. Those spuds are already under contract, unlike their other crops.

“We’re going to put grain on a lot of our pivots and then if it’s not looking that good, partway through the year we’ll just stop watering the grain and transfer all the water to potatoes,” says Ryland. “That’s the only backup plan we have as of yet. We’ll keep our head down and keep grinding and hopefully have enough water.”

With so much effort put into producing the vegetable at Nakamura Farms, the brothers have no desire to shift gears.

“We invested a pile [of money] and all our investment is in there,” says Ryland. “To start up potato farming is pretty hard. We’re just lucky to have inherited the farm which already had investments in the buildings and storage. You kind of have to stick with potatoes and it’s for the best. It’s a lot more work, but it’s worth it in the end.”

The brothers continue to seek land to purchase or rent to expand their potato acres.

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Across Canada, nearly 122.9 million hundredweight (cwt) of potatoes were harvested last year, with an average national yield of 322.3 cwt/acre on 381,351 acres.

Alberta rose from third into the top spot in 2022, reaping 26.81 million cwt of spuds, up from 24.61 million the year before. The province’s yield came to 375.9 cwt/ac. with 71,325 acres harvested.

In terms of production, Prince Edward Island slipped from first to second at 26.6 million cwt as output eased back from 27.21 million in 2021. Farmers in Canada’s smallest province harvested 81,900 acres, which fetched 324.8 cwt/ac.

Manitoba rounded out the top three at 26.14 million cwt, up from 24.02 million the previous year. The harvest took in 79,250 acres with a yield of 329.8 cwt/ac.

New Brunswick and Quebec were the next productive provinces at 17 million and 14.84 million cwt respectively. In 2021, New Brunswick hauled in 18.2 million cwt and Quebec was 14.1 million. In 2022, the yield in New Brunswick came to 329.5 cwt/ac. and Quebec garnered 312.3.

Ontario was sixth in 2022 at 8.16 million cwt of potatoes on 37,100 acres for a yield of 219.9 cwt/ac. The year before, the province brought in 8.95 million cwt.

As for the rest of Canada in 2022, the potato crop in British Columbia was 1.6 million cwt, along with 1.45 million in Saskatchewan, 240,000 in Nova Scotia and 52,000 in Newfoundland and Labrador. (In a footnote, StatCan said its production numbers for Saskatchewan and Newfoundland are to be used with caution.)

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The governments of Canada and Manitoba are investing $98,970 through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership to upgrade the University of Manitoba’s horticulture storage facility so it can conduct potato research.

Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau and provincial Agriculture Minister Derek Johnson made the announcement Thursday in a media release.

“Ensuring that our scientists have the tools they need to conduct their research is essential to support the resilience and competitiveness of the agricultural sector,” Bibeau said in the release.

“Potatoes are the fourth most valuable crop in Manitoba and are estimated to generate $1 billion per year for the provincial economy,” Johnson said in the same release. “Research and innovation are critical to developing new approaches that improve the potato sector.”

The investment will allow researchers to conduct post-harvest potato storage research that will be representative of on-farm storage at producer operations. The upgraded storage facility will be able to control environmental conditions, including carbon dioxide levels, temperature and humidity.

It will also align with other international research facilities and will be able to create more training and capacity-building opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students as the university strengthens partnerships with producers and processers in the potato sector.

“This much-needed infrastructure renewal will help our researchers solve real-world challenges in the storage and management of potatoes,” said Martin Scanlon, agricultural and food sciences dean.

“Equally important is the training and development of highly qualified professionals that this facility will provide to benefit the future of the potato industry in Manitoba and beyond.” — Manitoba Co-operator staff

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“In our meetings with industry and the P.E.I. Potato Board, the need for additional supports for our seed sector were identified, specifically so that those growers can assess and address alternative crops as they deal with ongoing trade suspensions,” provincial Agriculture Minister Bloyce Thompson said last week in a release.

Eligible seed potato growers who put land into soil-building crops or extended perennial crops under the program can qualify for $1,000 per acre of land established into those crops. Acres eligible for the payment are limited to a grower’s reduction in seed potato area only.

The program, called the “Soil Building for Seed Producers Project,” aims to help seed potato producers in beneficial management practices (BMPs) until decisions are made about ongoing trade suspensions.

Eligible BMPs involve incorporating soil-building crops into rotations and/or extending rotations with soil-building perennial crops.

Approved soil-building crops newly incorporated into rotations under the program can include annual as well as perennial crops — and must also have at least a three-star ranking for building soil organic matter, as ranked by the Cover Crop Tool for Eastern Canada.

For the BMP in which a grower extends rotations with soil-building perennial crops, an existing soil-building perennial crop must remain growing for a second full rotation year.

That is, fields are eligible only if the extended perennial crop in question — such as timothy, clover or alfalfa — had already been established the previous rotation year, so the perennial crop can’t be terminated until the spring of 2023.

The field’s rotation must otherwise include annual crops within it and must not be a long-term forage field, pasture or fallow land.

The P.E.I. Potato Board “is very pleased to work with the province on the development of this project, as our seed growers still face a lot of uncertainty and challenges for 2022 and beyond,” board chairman John Visser said in the same release.

P.E.I. has over 83,000 acres of land dedicated to the production of potatoes and is Canada’s No. 1 potato producer, according to a study on the economic impact of potatoes in Canada.

Both table stock potatoes and seed potatoes from P.E.I. were banned from export to the mainland U.S. in November last year following a few new cases of potato wart confirmed in fields in the province. The ban on table stock potato exports was lifted April 1 this year but seed potato exports remain blocked.

According to Statistics Canada, P.E.I. seed potato exports to the U.S. were valued at $2.79 million in 2020, down from just over $3.1 million in 2018 and 2019. The province’s total seed potato exports worldwide in 2020 were valued at $5.29 million, up from $4.5 million in 2019 and $4.97 million in 2018.

— Liam O’Connor reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Saskatoon.

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The P.E.I. Potato Board on Tuesday said the field in question is near to, and is “directly associated” with, a field where the soil-borne disease was found in October.

The field in question was also earmarked to produce potatoes for processing, rather than for seed or table stock — and the potatoes from that field “have been already processed,” the board said.

The soil sampling that turned up the new case was being conducted as part of the investigation of the two cases last fall, the board said, noting the new finding is “no surprise to those who study and manage potato wart.”

Rather, the board said, “this detection shows that the Long-Term Potato Wart Management Plan is correctly identifying fields at risk and implementing the appropriate surveillance and testing measures.”

The new case would be the 35th P.E.I. field with a potato wart detection since October 2000, when the disease was first confirmed in the province.

After a months-long ban on P.E.I. potato exports to the U.S. in 2000, a system was put in place between Canada and the U.S. to allow exports from lower-risk zones where the fungus hasn’t been detected and where the same equipment wasn’t used, as per the federal/provincial long-term plan.

But a request from U.S. plant health officials led Canada in early November to suspend permits for exports of fresh potatoes from Prince Edward Island. The U.S. cited concerns over the two cases found in P.E.I. processing potato fields in October.

Exports of fresh potatoes have since been allowed to resume from P.E.I. to the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, but have not yet resumed to the mainland U.S.

Ottawa in December pledged up to $28 million to help P.E.I. potato producers manage the surplus of potatoes resulting from the U.S. export suspension.

A resulting program, which also includes $12.2 million in provincial funding, was formally launched last month with the goal of “diverting as many potatoes as possible to processors, packers and food banks.”

Where needed, the program will also help P.E.I. potato growers cover the cost of “environmentally-sound destruction of surplus potatoes” at a rate of up to 8.5 cents per pound.

The U.S. in 2020 was by far P.E.I.’s biggest customer for potatoes, taking $476.9 million in fresh or chilled and processed potato goods, or just over 92 per cent of the province’s total potato exports, the province said last fall. Those product categories alone formed almost 84 per cent of the province’s total agricultural and agri-food exports last year.

The potato board reiterated Tuesday that the long-term management plan “has for more than 20 years controlled the movement of potatoes and equipment from regulated fields, mandated comprehensive cleaning and disinfection activities for high-risk fields, and restricted the movement of potatoes from fields under regulation.”

Ongoing surveillance supports that fields outside of the regulated area are free from potato wart, the board said.

“As a result, potato wart has never spread from P.E.I. to anywhere else,” the board said, noting that was confirmed in the results of a national soil survey released in December.

While not considered a human health or food safety risk, potato wart is known to drag down crop yields and can make potatoes unmarketable by ruining their appearance.

The fungal disease appears mainly below-ground, on plants’ tubers and runners. It spreads through movement of affected potatoes, soil, farm equipment and manure from animals that digest infested potatoes. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau on Monday announced $28 million “to support the diversion of surplus potatoes, including help to redirect surplus potatoes to organizations addressing food insecurity and support for the environmentally-sound disposal of surplus potatoes.”

Past that, the money will also go toward “marketing activities” and to help the province’s potato industry “develop long-term strategies to manage future challenges.”

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada said Monday it will work with the province, the P.E.I. Potato Board, national food bank organizations and “other stakeholder groups” to deliver the funding.

Details on how producers can get support from the new funding envelope will be available “through the coming weeks,” AAFC said.

Canadian export certification for P.E.I. potatoes destined for the U.S. has been suspended since Nov. 22 at the request of U.S. officials, after confirmation of potato wart in two separate P.E.I. processing potato fields on Oct. 1 and 14 respectively.

The two fields were related to previous potato wart detections and were already under regulation, so those fields’ production was at no time destined for the U.S.

Potato wart first turned up in P.E.I. in October 2000 and had since been found in 33 other fields there. After a months-long ban on P.E.I. potato exports to the U.S. in 2000, a system was set up in 2001 to allow exports from lower-risk zones where the fungus hasn’t been detected. That system, dubbed the Potato Wart Domestic Long Term Management Plan, had been in use since then.

The federal government reiterated Monday it “stands firmly on the science that indicates that the risks associated with the transmission of potato wart from fresh potatoes remains negligible when appropriate risk mitigation measures are in place.”

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Monday it will continue to make “science-based data and details of its investigation” into the October cases available to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), and that soil sampling and soil testing processes “are taking place as quickly as possible.”

Describing the suspension as “an incredibly hard time for our province’s potato farmers,” Heath MacDonald, MP for the P.E.I. constituency of Malpeque, said Monday the U.S. nevertheless has “been clear that trade cannot resume until we have worked through their technical concerns.”

Disposal of surplus potatoes — particularly in 2021 — is expected to be difficult at best. Greg Donald, the P.E.I. Potato Board’s general manager, said earlier this month it won’t be possible for the Canadian domestic market alone to eat through the surplus.

“If this goes beyond another week or two, somebody’s going to have to make some tough decisions what to do with the massive volume of potatoes,” Donald said on the Dec. 2 episode of the Between The Rows podcast.

To destroy surplus potatoes during a P.E.I. winter will mean shredding them through equipment such as snowblowers for spreading onto fields as compost, he said.

To leave them in storage beyond the winter, for disposal somehow in the spring, would be “a huge biosecurity issue itself” — and “you can’t dig a hole deep enough” to bury that volume of product.

Typically growing about a quarter of Canada’s potato production annually, P.E.I. was just coming off a record-level year in terms of both yield and quality,

Generally, he said, about 40 per cent of P.E.I.’s fresh potato crop is shipped each year to the U.S., and that level was expected to be higher this year as U.S. domestic production was expected to be down on the year.

‘Potential solutions’

While not considered a human health or food safety risk, potato wart is known to drag down crop yields and can make potatoes unmarketable by ruining their appearance.

The disease appears mainly below-ground, on plants’ tubers and runners. It comes from a soil-borne fungal parasite that spreads through movement of affected potatoes, soil, farm equipment and manure from animals that digest infested potatoes.

Potato wart has never been seen in any other Canadian province except Newfoundland and Labrador, where it’s been under “regulatory control” since 1909.

U.S. officials have said the disease “is not known to be present” in that country; it appeared during the 20th century in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland and was deemed eradicated in all three, lastly in Maryland in 1994.

After the export suspension was imposed last month, the federal and P.E.I. governments and stakeholders set up a Government-Industry Potato Working Group to “exchange information, help mitigate impacts of potato wart on the sector, and identify potential short- and long-term solutions to current trade disruptions.”

AAFC said Monday that Fred Gorrell, a former assistant deputy minister with the department and leader of the federal Market Access Secretariat, has been asked to be the new co-chair of the working group.

Past that, the federal and P.E.I. governments noted Monday they’ve also arranged changes to the AgriStability income stabilization program, allowing late enrolment for any potato growers who hadn’t already signed on for the 2021 program year.

The allowable interim payments available under AgriStability have also been raised, AAFC noted, so producers can apply to receive up to 75 rather than 50 per cent of their anticipated payment.

‘Ineffective action’

The province’s potato growers, meanwhile, took their concerns to the public Monday, organizing a convoy that included 16 potato trucks, carrying an estimated half million pounds of fresh potatoes through Charlottetown.

“We are here to show the federal government, who walked us into this situation, how we’re feeling and the impact their ineffective action is having,” grower John Visser, who chairs the P.E.I. Potato Board, said in a release Monday.

The board said the convoy of potato trucks is also “a statement by farmers of what is to come” as farmers may have to destroy up to 500 million pounds of “healthy, safe potatoes” because of the export ban.

Visser, in the board’s release, noted that growers “appreciate (Monday’s) assistance announcement as a start; however, what’s going to make the most difference to us is a resolution to the border issue, so we can resume trade as soon as possible.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Monday announced the suspension of certification for P.E.I. potato exports to the U.S., — a move which, according to federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, was imposed at the request of U.S. officials on threat of a ban coming from the U.S. side of the border.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Tuesday the suspension followed the confirmation in October of potato wart in two processing-grade potato fields in P.E.I.

“Our risk assessment demonstrated that this action is necessary to protect U.S. potato producers from possible exposure to… potato wart,” Vilsack said at the time.

U.S. officials, he said, would work with CFIA as the Canadian agency “delimit(s) the infestation and trace(s) the sources so that appropriate mitigation measures can be imposed and trade restrictions relaxed.”

The suspension of certification announced Monday applies on table stock potatoes and processing potatoes, but won’t apply to already-processed potatoes, such as frozen products, CFIA has said.

Former federal ag minister Lawrence MacAulay, one of the province’s four members of Parliament, said Tuesday the U.S. had “made clear that they would immediately ban the importation of P.E.I. potatoes if we did not take action.”

The U.S. stance, he wrote on Twitter, “clearly goes beyond what we feel is necessary — indeed, it’s absolutely unfair to our farmers on P.E.I. — but given the reality of the situation, the decision we took is the best way for us to resolve this as quickly as we possibly can.”

“In classic Liberal fashion, this ban was made in the middle of the night, with no consultation, and no plan to support the workers impacted by this decision,” the opposition Conservatives’ agriculture critic John Barlow said in a separate release Wednesday, noting the “lack of details” provided so far to affected potato growers.

Thus, Barlow said, the Conservatives called on the Liberals to “immediately release a plan to support P.E.I. potato farmers and give these workers a date for when the ban will be lifted.”

Barlow took the issue directly to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the House of Commons Thursday, criticizing the government for not consulting the P.E.I. government or affected farmers on the matter and asking him to reverse the “crippling, self-imposed ban.”

Trudeau replied the government is “obviously extremely concerned,” adding he brought up the matter directly with U.S. President Joe Biden the previous week in Washington and the government was working to make clear to U.S. officials that there’s “no scientific basis” for a ban.

In the meantime, imposing a voluntary suspension was meant “to prevent the Americans from bringing in something that would have been much more difficult to reverse,” Trudeau said.

MacAulay, writing on Twitter Tuesday, echoed that statement, adding that “letting the Americans implement their own ban would mean this unfortunate situation would last much longer.”

Speaking Thursday in the Commons, Barlow also chastised the four Liberal MPs representing P.E.I., stating they “haven’t said a single word about this decision.”

P.E.I. Premier Dennis King, in a separate statement Thursday, said he’s “in contact daily with our Island MPs and appreciate their unwavering support for the agriculture industry in Prince Edward Island in fact.”

Those MPs, King said, “are working hard, both here in P.E.I. and in Ottawa with Minister Bibeau as we know that a resolution to this current situation will only be found through a co-ordinated and unified effort.”

Domestic management

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), in a follow-up statement Thursday, cited the detection of potato wart in two separate P.E.I. potato fields last month and “a confirmed detection on a separate P.E.I. farm in 2020.”

Those detections, APHIS said, “indicate that the organism is present in areas not previously known to be infested.”

However, the P.E.I. Potato Board, in a separate statement Tuesday, said the two fields where potato wart was detected last month were already under regulation as part of the Long-Term Potato Wart Domestic Management Plan developed by CFIA — meaning they were already known to be linked to a previously infected field.

That means the potatoes grown on those fields “were already ineligible to be shipped to any market outside of Prince Edward Island, including the United States and Canada,” the board said.

Before last month’s findings, potato wart had appeared in 33 fields in P.E.I. since October 2000. After a months-long ban on P.E.I. potato exports to the U.S., a system was put in place in 2001 allowing exports from lower-risk zones where the fungus hasn’t been detected and where the same equipment wasn’t used.

Under that plan, table and processing potatoes admitted from P.E.I. to the U.S. were also required to be cleaned and treated with sprout inhibitors.

While not considered a human health or food safety risk, potato wart is known to drag on crop yields and can make potatoes unmarketable by ruining their appearance.

The soil-borne disease has never been seen in any other Canadian province except Newfoundland and Labrador, where it’s been under “regulatory control” since 1909.

U.S. officials said this week the disease “is not known to be present in the United States.” The disease was first confirmed in the U.S. in 1918 in Pennsylvania and later in West Virginia and Maryland. It was later deemed eradicated in all three states, the last being Maryland in 1994. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Monday it has “temporarily suspended” exports of fresh potatoes from P.E.I. to the U.S., until further notice.

Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau on Monday also announced ministerial orders on the movement of table-grade, processing and seed potatoes from P.E.I. within Canada.

To prevent the disease’s spread within Canada, new measures “may include requirements such as brushing and washing potatoes to remove any soil.” The ministerial order, CFIA said, will ensure “regulated commodities are certified to mitigate concerns related to potato wart.”

Those measures would allow P.E.I. seed potato farms to grow seed potatoes for use within the province, and maintain movement of table stock and processing potatoes to other provinces, the government said.

The orders from Bibeau and CFIA follow federal confirmation of “high levels” of potato wart in two separate P.E.I. processing potato fields on Oct. 1 and 14 respectively, CFIA said.

The two fields were related to previous potato wart detections and were already under regulation, CFIA said. Thus, the fields’ production was at no time destined for the U.S., the province said Monday.

The disease first turned up in P.E.I. in October 2000 and had since been found in 33 other fields there. After a months-long ban on P.E.I. potato exports to the U.S. in 2000, a system was put in place allowing exports from lower-risk zones where the fungus hasn’t been detected and where the same equipment wasn’t used.

While not considered a human health or food safety risk, potato wart is known to drag down crop yields and can make potatoes unmarketable by ruining their appearance.

The disease appears mainly below-ground, on plants’ tubers and runners. It comes from a soil-borne fungal parasite that spreads through movement of affected potatoes, soil, farm equipment and manure from animals that digest infested potatoes.

Potato wart has never been seen in any other Canadian province except Newfoundland and Labrador, where it’s been under “regulatory control” since 1909.

‘Must engage’

After the findings in October, Canada on Nov. 2 suspended movement of seed potatoes from P.E.I. to the U.S.

But despite that and other measures, the U.S. has “expressed serious concerns” over the October cases “and made it clear the U.S. also planned to impose a federal order banning imports of all fresh P.E.I. potatoes if Canada did not act first to suspend trade,” Bibeau said Monday.

A U.S. ban on P.E.I. potatoes, she said, would go “beyond what is necessary to mitigate risk,” because with “proper mitigation measures, the trade of table stock and processing potatoes remains absolutely safe.”

However, “to resume trade as quickly as possible and prevent the imposition of more damaging, long-term measures, we must engage with the United States’ concerns… We do not take this measure lightly.”

The block on P.E.I. exports to the U.S. is in the form of a “suspension of certification” on table stock potatoes and processing potatoes — but won’t apply to already-processed potatoes, such as frozen products, CFIA said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said Monday it’s also asked U.S. border officials to enforce a ban on imports of soil from P.E.I. and to require used farm machinery, farm tools and farm equipment imported from P.E.I. to be “clean and free from soil.”

Those requirements on equipment movement, CFIA said, “should be considered permanent until further notice.”

Premier Dennis King, in a news conference Monday, said that from the province’s perspective, the decision to issue a federal ministerial order now “goes against the accepted industry safety protocols” and the management plans that have been in place since 2000.

For potato wart, he said, Canada and the U.S. have developed protocols that “both countries follow and have followed and should still be followed.”

Bibeau’s decision, King said, “will potentially cripple our industry and sully our reputation around the world.” He quoted her as saying the decision was being made “to appease a trading partner” and called on her to “put this decision through the shredder immediately.”

Work to restore full access for P.E.I. fresh potatoes is underway, Bibeau said, but the government is also now working on cost-shared business risk management programs for affected growers, along with “collaborative efforts” on how to reroute existing stock in storage in P.E.I.

Bibeau also said the feds will also work with the province “to determine what additional supports may be required.”

Provincial Ag Minister Bloyce Thompson on Monday announced a $10 million contingency fund will be set up to help affected farmers cover some costs and seek other markets for their products. He also said the province will be looking for “significant compensation” from the federal government.

The U.S. in 2020 was by far P.E.I.’s biggest customer for potatoes, taking $476.9 million in fresh or chilled and processed potato goods, or just over 92 per cent of the province’s total potato exports, the province said. Those product categories alone formed almost 84 per cent of the province’s total agricultural and agri-food exports last year.

Greg Donald, general manager of the P.E.I. Potato Board, said Monday that USDA’s request for Canada to pursue a ban on P.E.I. potato exports was “predicated on feedback from a segment of the American potato industry which is advocating for this suspension” and is “solely a politically based trade disruption.”

If the decision isn’t reversed, he said, it will “necessitate the destruction of hundreds of millions of pounds of high-quality fresh potatoes, as potatoes are a perishable crop that cannot be stored indefinitely.”

The board also suggested the federal government seek a reciprocal ban on U.S. potatoes from areas where other regulated potato diseases are known to occur. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Companies that turn potatoes into french fries, wedges and hash browns are slowing down, because there isn’t enough space to store all the frozen product.

In Alberta and Manitoba, potato processors have been short potatoes because of poor harvest conditions last year — with more than 20,000 acres “being abandoned in farmers’ fields,” according to the United Potato Growers of Canada.

That had led to french fry processors in Western Canada importing potatoes from the U.S., but that’s now ceased, said the general manager of that organization.

“Customers will understand they have enough potatoes in their own storages now to get to the end of their marketing season,” Kevin MacIsaac said April 7.

But while french fry sales have stagnated, potato chip sales are up.

“Chip sales have been great,” he said. “Fresh potato sales were really good at the start. They’ve levelled off now as people have shopped and got what they need.

“We probably will expect another little bump in fresh sales at the end of Easter weekend.”

And people still have a way to get restaurant fries.

“We’re fortunate in Canada that our drive-thrus are still open,” said MacIsaac. “In Europe, some of our quick-service restaurants like McDonald’s, they’ve closed the whole restaurant. That’s been real difficult for them to have no sales out of that building.”

Delivery services such as Skip the Dishes and DoorDash are also maintaining some french fry sales to restaurants, he said.

Meanwhile, his organization is trying to figure out the amount of potatoes in storage so it can forecast how much production will be needed this coming year.

“Some became unexpectedly available on the marketplace, so we’ve got to calculate those figures first from each province and figure out where that comes in,” he said.

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In a recent plebiscite, 56 producers (82.3 per cent) voted in favour of making the service charge non-refundable. There were 11 opposing votes and one spoiled ballot.

There are about 140 licensed potato growers in the province, cropping about 53,000 acres (mostly processing potatoes) annually. The checkoff is $25 for fresh potatoes, $35 an acre for seed potatoes, and seven cents per hundred pounds for processing potatoes.

The board of the Potato Growers of Alberta has to approve the change to a non-refundable checkoff, but is expected to do so.

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