Seed potato growers who destroyed their crops last year because borders were closed to their sale are hopeful promised compensation from the federal government could come this month, as Kevin Yarr reports for CBC News.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency stopped transport of seed potatoes, along with table potatoes, in the fall of 2021 after potato wart was found in some Island fields. It ended 20 years of successful management of the pest.
So far, compensation to seed growers has only covered the cost of running the potatoes through a snowblower, said Greg Donald, general manager of the P.E.I. Potato Board, but those growers heard good news at the annual P.E.I. Potato Conference in Summerside Monday.
“The government has made a commitment to provide compensation to those seed producers,” said Donald.
Source: CBC News. Read the full story here
Photo: Excess potatoes are chopped up through a snowblower and spread on fields. It was the fate of hundreds of millions of pounds of P.E.I. potatoes in 2022. Credit Mary Kay Sonier | PEI Potato Board
