It has been one year since the U.S. border was closed to P.E.I. potatoes, and potato growers say they are still feeling the impact. Now, they worry a blanket ban on P.E.I. potatoes could happen again, as Nancy Russell reports for CBC News.
Canadian Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau described the suspension as a pre-emptive measure, because the Americans were threatening to ban P.E.I. potatoes if Canada didn’t take immediate action. She said that order would be challenging to overturn.
At Skye View Farms in Elmwood, P.E.I., Alex Docherty has warehouses full of seed potatoes harvested this fall, with nowhere to sell them other than on Prince Edward Island. “You couldn’t measure the impact, in my opinion. There’s millions and millions of dollars lost, and good food went to waste, and it’s not over, that’s the problem,” Docherty said.
Docherty said he planted fewer potatoes this year, but still went ahead, despite not knowing what markets there would be.
Source: CBC News. Read the full story here
Photo: Alex Docherty of Skye View Farms and his father watch as a truckload of potatoes is dumped in a field to be destroyed in February 2022. Submitted by Alex Docherty and first published by CBC News.
