Potato Review

www.potatoreview.com POTATO REVIEW MAY/JUNE 2022 53 INTERNATIONAL Politician speaks out over ban CANADIAN politician John Barlow joined those lashing out regarding a ban on imports. The MP, who is Agriculture Critic for Canada’s Conservative Party said it was time to start shipping PEI (Prince Edward Island) potatoes back to the US mainland after he visited the island where he talked to growers, whom he described as frustrated and desperate. At the end of November the Canadian Food Inspection Agency banned the export of PEI potatoes to the US following the detection of potato wart in two fields. Farmers faced critical decisions about spring planting, not knowing whether or not the border will reopen, the MP said. He said the federal government ordered the border closure because the American government was threatening to act on its own, and an American order would be more di cult to reverse. On his website, he stated: “ The toll on farming families is devastating. As a result of our inability to export produce to the United States, more than 300 million pounds of potatoes have been destroyed or left to rot, and multi-year damage has been done to the potato seed industry. It is heartbreaking for PEI farmers to destroy what was a bumper crop, but now Liberal inaction has put next year’s season in jeopardy. The irreparable damage to the agriculture industry in PEI will be felt for generations to come. “Every day, I hear from desperate families who have capably handled the issue of potato warts for years. These families feel completely abandoned by the federal Liberal government in Ottawa. Their livelihoods are being destroyed, and it’s clear the frustration, anger, and anxiety they are expressing is boiling over.” Newly-elected NPC president promotes free and fair trade THE National Potato Council’s Washington Summit took recently, where the NPC’s newly-elected president, Jared Balcom from Pasco, stressed the importance of promoting free and fair-trade agreements, citing the Mexico and Asian markets as being of particular focus. During the summit, attendees also advocated issues such as keeping potatoes in federal nutrition programs and protecting tax policies that support the long-term health of family-owned farming operations. Maine potatoes go west after drought in Idaho and Washington GROWERS from Maine shipped potatoes by rail for the first time in four decades this winter thanks to a strong harvest in the state and heat and dry weather that impeded farmers in renowned potato-growing states like Idaho and Washington. The potatoes made their way more than 2,500 miles for processing, being transported in climate-controlled rail cars. All told, 21 million pounds of potatoes, virtually all from growers in northern Maine, flowed through a rail-connected warehouse owned by LaJoie Growers LLC. That equates to more than 530 truckloads of potatoes, said co-owner Jay LaJoie. Most of the Maine potatoes went to processors in Washington state, where much of the French fries and other products are exported. The shipments to Idaho were seed potatoes, including Maine’s Caribou russet, that’ll be planted this spring. War crisis leads to soaring demand in mid-Italy THE Russian-Ukrainian conflict has led to a much-increased demand for potatoes by Italian consumers, it has been claimed. In an interview with FreshPlaza, a supplier said demand had soared while prices had remained stable - unlike that of wheat and other cereals, which are registering record quotations. Vincenzo Colombrino from Magna Grecia, a cooperative located in Basilicata that supplies around four thousand tons of potatoes every year through large retail chains in the centre and south of the country stated: “We have registered an increase in orders that exceeds 20%. It started with the first blocks in road haulage and has intensified with the war in Eastern Europe.”