A Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.) company has brokered a deal to send as many as 700 tractor trailer loads of surplus P.E.I processing potatoes to Lamb Weston’s french fry plant in Canada’s Alberta province. As Nancy Russell reports for CBC News, the deal was put together by Terry Curley of Monaghan Farms, who is part of a working group set up to deal with the potato wart crisis in Prince Edward Island.
“Anything leaving P.E.I. is a help. There’s no question about that. We as an industry could have as many as 10,000 tractor trailer loads we’re going to have to destroy here whenever that may happen,” Curley said. “This order here is probably in the range of 700 tractor trailers. So it’s a help, but not even 10 per cent of what we’re going to have to get rid of. The U.S. market is the big one.”
“The only reason we are getting into the western provinces is they went through a drought, and they don’t have the potatoes and that’s opened up a market,” Curley said.
Curley said the Alberta deal won’t help growers who have warehouses full of table stock and seed potatoes, which can’t be made into french fries. He said growers will be paid the same price they would be getting from Cavendish Farms, and he estimated between 25 and 50 farmers could benefit from the deal.
Source: CBC. Read the full story here
Photo: Terry Curley. Courtesy Alex MacIsaac/CBC
