Potato border battle escalates Effect of ban on Maine estimated to be modest

PRESQUE ISLE – The Canadian potato industry would lose more than it would gain if it retaliated against its U.S. counterparts in the border dispute regarding potatoes from Prince Edward Island, Maine potato officials said Monday.

Last week, P.E.I. politicians approved a resolution that called on Canadian federal officials to “immediately close Canadian borders to the importation of American potatoes until such time that Prince Edward Island potatoes have unrestricted access to the American markets.”

The U.S. border has been closed to P.E.I. potatoes since last October when the potato wart fungus was found in a commercial field. A long-lived disease, the wart causes cauliflowerlike eruptions on the tuber, rendering the produce unmarketable.

The disease, which is uncontrollable with chemicals, can live in the soil for decades. U.S. scientists have warned potato growers that contracting the fungus can render a potato production area a “biological island,” much like the Canadian province of Newfoundland.

The Maine potato industry exports a small amount of seed potatoes and some processing spuds to Canada, according to Michael Corey, executive director of the Maine Potato Board.

However, such an export ban could be felt more in states that harvest potatoes in the spring and summer such as California, North Carolina and Virginia. Those states sell potatoes to Canada to feed potato processing plants when the availability of fresh produce from fall-harvesting states like Maine has become slim.

“I wonder what they’d base [a ban] on,” Corey said of the Canadian threat. “It seems like they’d lose a lot more than they’d gain. I wonder if they want a full-blown trade war.”

Corey said he has talked with some potato growers in the Carolinas who have expressed concern about not selling some of their crop to Canadian processors. At the same time, the southern farmers understand the wart issue and the importance of keeping the disease out of the country, he said.

Verne DeLong, executive director of the Maine Agricultural Bargaining Council, agreed the Canadian potato industry would be more hurt than helped if such a ban was instituted. The council negotiates contracts between potato growers and processors.

Each side has lined up experts to support its arguments regarding the wart issue. While P.E.I. officials claim results of thousands of soil samples prove that the fungus is contained, U.S. industry spokesmen claim the strain of the disease needs to be determined.

Because of an overproduction last year of potatoes, P.E.I. farmers claim the United States instituted the ban to keep island produce out of American markets. But U.S. officials have said their actions are based on science.