Potato fungus threat to U.S. seen as ‘remote’ Expert says exports from P.E.I safe

PERTH-ANDOVER, New Brunswick – Canadian officials continued to insist Wednesday that there was no hazard in exporting potatoes from Prince Edward Island, where a long-lived fungus was found last fall.

The United States border was closed to P.E.I. potatoes after the potato wart disease was found. The discovery essentially shut down the island province’s shipping of produce this winter.

The disease causes eruptions on the potato resembling cauliflower, rendering it unmarketable. Officials on the American side of the border claim that an industry can be ruined if the disease is introduced to the region.

Given that the most common way for the fungus to spread is by planting tubers from infested soil, a Canadian scientist, Kenneth Proudfoot, said the possibility of the fungus’ spreading to the United States is “remote.”

At the same time, Proudfoot said after his presentation that testing is continuing to determine what type, or strain, of fungus it is. Knowing that information has been one of the issues that American potato growers have raised during the controversy.

Proudfoot, a retired potato and rutabaga breeder from Newfoundland, spoke Wednesday at the New Brunswick Potato Conference in Perth-Andover. About 120 growers and industry officials from New Brunswick attended the session. Proudfoot also is being touted as Canada’s expert on the disease and is a member of a team of U.S. and Canadian scientists studying the issue.

The scientist has criticized U.S. response to the fungus’s discovery, saying that P.E.I. has taken the necessary precautions to contain the disease.

“There’s no evidence at all that any other field [on P.E.I.] is infested,” said Proudfoot.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is being asked by the Mexican government for a full report on the P.E.I. potato wart situation, a CFIA official told the conference.

The issue is part of discussions between Canada and Mexico regarding a trade agreement between the two countries.

Mexico has shipping restrictions against seed potatoes produced in P.E.I. and New Brunswick because of other disease problems, according to Alain Boucher of the inspection agency based in Moncton, N.B.

In his presentation, Proudfoot said that shipping potatoes from P.E.I. for either the fresh or processing market should not threaten any potato industry in Canada, the United States or overseas. Fresh market or processed potatoes are washed before being cooked or made into french fries, which would kill the organism, he said.

In addition, washing tubers produced in infested soil reduces the risk of further infection by 94 percent, according to Proudfoot.

The scientist, who during his career in Newfoundland developed nine potato varieties that are wart-resistant, said that the disease was found in a commercial field measuring about 60 acres. In a small corner of the field, measuring less than 1 acre, fewer than 80 pieces of the disease were found, he said.

The fungus could have been there for possibly 25 years when the plot was used as a household garden.

“It’s the one and only field where potato wart has been detected in P.E.I.,” Proudfoot said, adding that only 15 of about 10,000 soil samples from the potato field showed evidence of the disease.

In addition, the potatoes were used in processing plants, he said.

The field in question has been taken out of potato production, according to Proudfoot.

In answer to a question after his talk, Proudfoot said that the tests used to detect the disease were very sensitive. It was the same test used to declare a Maryland field free of the disease, Proudfoot said.

The disease was found in Newfoundland in 1909, which resulted in the province being put under quarantine. Other incidents were reported in New Brunswick in 1912 and in Nova Scotia in 1941. The fungus also was found in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland in the early part of the 1900s, areas since declared wart-free.

Earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins urged President Bush to support the “science-based approach” that U.S. officials have adopted in dealing with the P.E.I. situation. Bush was scheduled to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien on Monday and the wart issue was expected to be discussed.

“If this disease were to find it way into U.S. fields, it was would have devastating effect on our nation’s potato industry,” Collins’ letter to Bush stated.

The issue did come up in discussion between the two heads of state, according to a Collins spokeswoman. The White House position is that the matter will continued to be handled in a scientific manner as prescribed by the U.S. Animal Plant Health Inspection Service.