Potato wart is soil-borne fungus that can reduce potato yield and quality. In 2021 and 2022, exports of potatoes were restricted from Prince Edward Island after the disease was found in some fields.

The response plan outlines protocols for when potato wart is detected in Canada (except for Newfoundland and Labrador).

New measures in the plan include requirements for users of restricted fields to implement preventative control plans and additional soil sampling and analysis requirements for restricted fields, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said in a Thursday news release.

Seed potato certification will no longer be available for seed potatoes grown in restricted fields, as these pose significant risks for spreading the disease.

The CFIA developed the plan in consultation with groups like the Canadian Potato Council, the Prince Edward Island Potato Board, and the P.E.I. provincial government.

The CFIA said it met with growers in P.E.I. to discuss the new plan and the transition for users of currently restricted fields, which will continue to be restricted under the new plan.

The National Potato Wart Response Plan replaces the Potato Wart Domestic Long-term Management Plan, enacted in 2009.

The 2024 National Potato Wart Survey turned up no cases of the disease in Canada. The survey analyzed soil samples from fields across the country that had no previous associations with known potato wart cases.

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This marks the third consecutive year the survey did not detect disease, though the 2022 survey did not include fields in Prince Edward Island, which struggled with the disease that year.

The 2024 survey analyzed more than 2200 samples collected from seed potato fields in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. Samples came from fields with no association with previous potato wart cases, the CFIA said in a news release.

The survey monitors for the presence of potato wart, and provides data to help verify that control measures are working.

Detection of potato wart in P.E.I in 2021 and 2022 led to export restrictions and mitigation orders.

The federal government has been working on a potato wart response plan, which the CFIA said would soon be implemented. The order will include improved risk mitigation measures like enhanced biosecurity, soil sampling and analysis.

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To date, the Canadian Potato Council, the Prince Edward Island Potato Board, the Province of PEI, and other stakeholders have been involved throughout the development of the new response plan, the CFIA said in a news release yesterday.

Recommendations from the International Advisory Panel on Potato Wart and input from previous consultations have also been  incorporated.

The plan will be one of several complementary processes used by the CFIA to help manage potato wart and prevent its spread alongside measures like a national potato wart survey and phytosanitary export certification procedures, the CFIA said.

The final plan will replace the current Potato Wart Domestic Long Term Management Plan, and will apply to new detections of potato wart anywhere in Canada other than Newfoundland and Labrador.

The consultation closes January 6, 2025.

In late 2021, two processing potato fields on the island were confirmed infected with potato wart.

On U.S. trade concerns, the federal government shut down fresh potato exports from the province. Most trade resumed in April 2022.

The 2021 cases were followed by confirmations in February, July and December of 2022, bringing in export restrictions and mitigation orders.

The most recent national potato wart survey found no cases of the disease.

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The CFIA in its 2023 national potato wart survey tested for the soil-borne fungus in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

This marks the second year the survey turned up no cases of potato wart, though the 2022 survey did not include P.E.I, which struggled with the fungus in 2021 and 2022.

In late 2021, two processing potato fields on the island were confirmed infected with potato wart.

On U.S. trade concerns, the federal government shut down fresh potato exports from the province. Most trade resumed in April 2022.

The 2021 cases were followed by confirmations in February, July and December of 2022, bringing in export restrictions and mitigation orders.

Earlier this year, the federal government asked for producer feedback on new potato wart guidance documents and plans.

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The new plan would replace the existing Potato Wart Domestic Long Term Management Plan, the CFIA said in a news release.

The CFIA wants input on risk management documents (RMDs), which include those related to seed propagation in restricted fields, categorization of fields and biosecurity control programs.

Recommendations made by an international advisory panel and a Canadian industry working group were used in the development of these documents.

The deadline to share feedback is Jan. 31. The documents can be viewed on the CFIA’s website.

The CFIA also designed a tool to help Prince Edward Island potato producers quickly see where land restrictions are in place, and an industry guide to best management practices, it said in a Dec. 20 news release.

The 2023 potato wart survey didn’t find any new instances of the fungal disease in P.E.I. The rest of the survey results haven’t yet been published, the news released added. Last year’s survey resulted in a clean bill of health.

In late 2021, Canada halted exports of P.E.I. potatoes to the U.S. after high levels of potato wart were found in the province. This led to a $28 million federal aid program and attempts to divert potatoes to other processors, packers and food banks.

Trade resumed to Puerto Rico in February, 2022, and to the continental U.S. in April that year.

The CFIA said it plans to share the new national potato wart response plan for public comment in early spring.

—Geralyn Wichers is associate digital editor of AgCanada. She writes from southeast Manitoba.

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Federal Agriculture Minister and P.E.I. MP Lawrence MacAulay on Friday reported meeting with staff and representatives of the P.E.I. Potato Board, to discuss next steps in the face of new potato wart-related restrictions on the province’s crops since 2021.

Potato wart was first detected in the province in 2000, and after a six-month ban on P.E.I. potato exports to the U.S., a system was put in place allowing exports from lower-risk zones where the fungus hasn’t been detected and where the same equipment wasn’t used.

While not considered a human health or food safety risk, potato wart is known to reduce crop yields and can make potatoes unmarketable by ruining their appearance.

The zone system allowing U.S. exports continued up until October 2021, when potato wart was confirmed in two P.E.I. fields which were related to previous detections and were already under regulation. In November that year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) advised U.S. border services to reject all shipments of P.E.I. potatoes.

P.E.I. potatoes for consumption were admitted again to the U.S. the following April — but exports of field-grown P.E.I. seed potatoes to the U.S. remain prohibited.

A federal ministerial order in place since last Nov. 21 allows for P.E.I. seed potatoes to move to other provinces on a case-by-case basis, and provides for tighter risk controls on P.E.I. table stock and processing potatoes.

‘Next steps’

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) last month completed its investigation into the two 2021 detections. The agency said it collected and analyzed 48,789 soil samples from P.E.I. fields associated with the two findings. Those samples confirmed potato wart in four more fields, bringing the province’s total to 37 affected fields since 2000.

Thus, CFIA said last month, the risks associated with the transmission of potato wart from fresh potatoes from P.E.I. “remain negligible when appropriate risk mitigation measures are in place and followed.”

With the probe complete, MacAulay and CFIA said Friday they’re “committed to engaging with the industry on next steps.”

Those steps, they said, will include criteria for designating PFPP in the province, to “support the movement of commodities including seed potatoes off of the island.”

Plans for a PFPP system were “discussed and welcomed” by the P.E.I. Potato Board during the meeting, the government said.

Over 95 per cent of P.E.I. potatoes continue to remain eligible for export to the rest of Canada and to the U.S., MacAulay said in a federal release, emphasizing “the importance of working together with growers as they maintain and enhance control measures, such as biosecurity and traceability activities” so as to maintain market access.

CFIA said it will “continue to engage” with the P.E.I. industry on program elements to renew Canada’s National Potato Wart Response Plan and work toward implementation of that updated plan in 2024.

A new long-term plan to help continue to contain, control, and prevent the spread of potato wart “will help maintain and improve the economic sustainability of the potato sector in P.E.I. and across Canada, and maintain crucial export markets,” the agency said. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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On March 13, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said results from their 2022 potato wart survey had not found any cases of the soil-borne fungus. The agency had tested nearly 1,500 soil samples from fields in British Columbia, the three Prairie provinces, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Prince Edward Island, whose potato sector has been newly haunted by the fungus following cases in 2021 and 2022, was not directly included in the survey. However, the CFIA targeted farms that had a history of sourcing seed potatoes from the Maritime province.

The agency described the survey as “an important step in the government of Canada’s efforts to help contain and control the spread of potato wart and reassure domestic and international trading partners.”

In October 2021, two processing potato fields in Prince Edward Island were confirmed infected with potato wart. The news had immediate trade impacts to the sector.

Citing U.S. concerns, the federal government locked down fresh potato exports from the province. Trade of eating potatoes resumed to the U.S. in April 2022, although export of seed potatoes to the U.S. still remains off limits.

Following the findings, the federal government promised $28 million to help impacted producers divert their sudden potato surplus. Prince Edward Island pitched in a further $12.5 million.

Those first cases were followed by confirmations in February 2022, July 2022 and, frustratingly for the potato sector, December of last year.

Domestic and export requirements and restrictions are still in place around movement of potatoes out of the province, as well as mitigation orders around things like soil movement and farm equipment.

Producers have said that millions of pounds of potatoes had to be destroyed following the loss of markets.

The CFIA has said that the cluster of potato wart cases represents “the largest ongoing investigations since the pest was first detected in P.E.I in 2000.

“The size and scope of these ongoing investigations required the strongest regulatory action to date to help protect against the further spread of potato wart outside of P.E.I.”

While not part of the national survey, there have been investigations specific to P.E.I. Almost 44,700 samples had been taken by the end of 2022 as part of that program, about 35,500 of which have been processed.

The CFIA has said that the national survey will dovetail with ongoing potato wart investigations.

Survey results have been forwarded to the CFIA’s American counterpart, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).

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“In our meetings with industry and the P.E.I. Potato Board, the need for additional supports for our seed sector were identified, specifically so that those growers can assess and address alternative crops as they deal with ongoing trade suspensions,” provincial Agriculture Minister Bloyce Thompson said last week in a release.

Eligible seed potato growers who put land into soil-building crops or extended perennial crops under the program can qualify for $1,000 per acre of land established into those crops. Acres eligible for the payment are limited to a grower’s reduction in seed potato area only.

The program, called the “Soil Building for Seed Producers Project,” aims to help seed potato producers in beneficial management practices (BMPs) until decisions are made about ongoing trade suspensions.

Eligible BMPs involve incorporating soil-building crops into rotations and/or extending rotations with soil-building perennial crops.

Approved soil-building crops newly incorporated into rotations under the program can include annual as well as perennial crops — and must also have at least a three-star ranking for building soil organic matter, as ranked by the Cover Crop Tool for Eastern Canada.

For the BMP in which a grower extends rotations with soil-building perennial crops, an existing soil-building perennial crop must remain growing for a second full rotation year.

That is, fields are eligible only if the extended perennial crop in question — such as timothy, clover or alfalfa — had already been established the previous rotation year, so the perennial crop can’t be terminated until the spring of 2023.

The field’s rotation must otherwise include annual crops within it and must not be a long-term forage field, pasture or fallow land.

The P.E.I. Potato Board “is very pleased to work with the province on the development of this project, as our seed growers still face a lot of uncertainty and challenges for 2022 and beyond,” board chairman John Visser said in the same release.

P.E.I. has over 83,000 acres of land dedicated to the production of potatoes and is Canada’s No. 1 potato producer, according to a study on the economic impact of potatoes in Canada.

Both table stock potatoes and seed potatoes from P.E.I. were banned from export to the mainland U.S. in November last year following a few new cases of potato wart confirmed in fields in the province. The ban on table stock potato exports was lifted April 1 this year but seed potato exports remain blocked.

According to Statistics Canada, P.E.I. seed potato exports to the U.S. were valued at $2.79 million in 2020, down from just over $3.1 million in 2018 and 2019. The province’s total seed potato exports worldwide in 2020 were valued at $5.29 million, up from $4.5 million in 2019 and $4.97 million in 2018.

— Liam O’Connor reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Saskatoon.

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Canada’s federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said on Twitter that officials with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) are now preparing to certify exports of eligible P.E.I. potatoes to the U.S. “as quickly as possible” to meet the new rules.

Export certificates can now be requested for shipments that meet the new order from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), CFIA said Friday in a separate notice.

Friday’s order from APHIS ends an export ban in place since Nov. 22. That’s when APHIS advised U.S. border officials to reject shipments of P.E.I. potatoes — thus leaving CFIA unable to certify outgoing shipments, which in turn led to a Canadian ministerial order to suspend export permits.

The suspension had followed confirmations of the fungus that causes potato wart in two P.E.I. fields last October. Another “directly associated” field was confirmed with the fungus last month.

Potato wart is not brand-new to P.E.I., although it remains relatively rare there. The province has confirmed 34 fields with the potato wart pathogen since its first case was discovered, in 2000.

Canadian and U.S. officials, after a months-long ban in 2000, agreed on a new system allowing exports from lower-risk zones of P.E.I. where the fungus hasn’t been detected — and the two countries operated under that system up until the cases in October.

APHIS said Friday its “subsequent confirmatory analysis” of P.E.I.’s potato wart situation in February led to the new order.

While the new order allows imports of P.E.I. potatoes for consumption, it still specifically prohibits imports of the province’s field-grown seed potatoes into the United States. The order allows entry of “in vitro plantlets, micro-tubers and mini-tubers for planting” but those will require a permit.

Under the new order, shipments of P.E.I. table potatoes eligible for export must be:

• from fields that don’t have potato wart or are “associated with known infestations;”
• grown from seed potatoes that were not produced on any wart-infected or wart-associated field;
• washed in P.E.I. to remove soil, and confirmed as free of soil on inspection at the port of entry;
• treated with a sprout inhibitor registered with Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), and accompanied by a statement on the export documentation detailing that treatment;
• graded to meet the U.S. No. 1 standard (equivalent to Canada No. 1);
• officially “inspected for pest freedom” prior to export, after the potatoes are washed; and
• traceable from the field of production through to packing and export, allowing for full traceback and recall if need be.

Consignments arriving at a U.S. port of entry are also subject to inspection and must also come with a CFIA-issued, APHIS-approved certification that the potatoes are “free of quarantine pests for the United States” and declaring they meet all the requirements of the new order.

The new APHIS order replaces previous orders on P.E.I. potato imports for all U.S. states and territories — including for Puerto Rico, where APHIS had already allowed fresh P.E.I. potato exports to resume in February.

The P.E.I. Potato Board, in a separate statement Friday, said it’s “pleased to receive the confirmation” of APHIS’ new order, adding that farmers and potato packers will work with CFIA to “ensure the requirements are clearly understood.”

Potato growers and packers “look forward to moving ahead with shipping P.E.I.’s safe, healthy and world-class potatoes the remainder of the shipping season,” the board said.

That said, the board noted P.E.I. seed potato growers “are still subject to trade restrictions that need urgent attention, particularly with respect to adequate compensation.”

The federal government in December pledged up to $28 million to help P.E.I. growers manage the surplus of potatoes resulting from the U.S. export suspension. A resulting program, which also included $12.2 million in provincial funding, was formally launched in February with the goal of “diverting as many potatoes as possible to processors, packers and food banks.”

Where needed, the program also pledged to help P.E.I. growers cover the cost of “environmentally-sound destruction of surplus potatoes” at a rate of up to 8.5 cents per pound.

The U.S. in 2020 was by far P.E.I.’s biggest customer for potatoes, taking $476.9 million in fresh or chilled and processed potato goods, or just over 92 per cent of the province’s total potato exports, the province said last fall. Those product categories alone formed almost 84 per cent of the province’s total agricultural and agri-food exports last year.

While not considered a human health or food safety risk, potato wart is known to drag down crop yields and can make potatoes unmarketable by ruining their appearance.

The fungal disease appears mainly below-ground, on plants’ tubers and runners. It spreads through movement of affected potatoes, soil, farm equipment and manure from animals that digest infested potatoes.

Among Canadian provinces other than P.E.I., potato wart is present only in Newfoundland and Labrador. Potatoes, root vegetables, soil, used bags, burlap, plants with roots and soil and other containers with soil are not allowed to leave that province, except under CFIA permit. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said Thursday that Canada “is expected to soon resume exporting (P.E.I.) table stock potatoes into the contiguous United States.”

APHIS said in a release that the move is a “result of the U.S. and Canada reaching an understanding about the risk of table stock potato imports from P.E.I.”

Canada’s Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau acknowledged APHIS’ decision Thursday on Twitter, saying USDA had “confirmed the resumption of trade for P.E.I. table stock potatoes into the U.S. (with) reasonable science-based conditions.”

“This reopening comes at a critical time for the industry,” Bibeau said in a later statement. “Potato exports are essential for the livelihoods of so many Islanders, and I am confident that this decision by the U.S. will give farmers the predictability and assurances they need for the next potato growing season.”

Following the confirmation of the fungus that causes potato wart in two P.E.I. fields last October, APHIS on Nov. 22 advised U.S. border officials to reject shipments of P.E.I. potatoes, leaving the Canadian Food Inspection Agency “unable to certify potato shipments… given that the exports no longer met the importing country’s requirements.”

P.E.I. has seen 35 detections of potato wart since October 2000. The fungal disease, which appears mainly on stolons and tubers, can reduce yields and make potatoes unmarketable. The U.S. and all mainland Canadian provinces are today considered to be free of potato wart.

The discovery of the disease in the province in 2000 had led the U.S. to briefly close its borders to P.E.I. potatoes until the province’s Potato Wart Domestic Long Term Management Plan was put in place months later, allowing exports from lower-risk zones where the fungus hasn’t been detected and where the same equipment wasn’t used.

Now, Bibeau said in Thursday’s statement, APHIS “has completed their pest risk analysis and concluded, like Canada, that the trade of P.E.I. table stock potatoes can be done safely.”

APHIS said Thursday that Canada will lift the November ban while the agency “plans to publish a federal order outlining additional required mitigations to protect the U.S. potato industry.”

Publication of a U.S. federal order “outlining the required mitigations” for table stock potatoes is expected to take about 10 business days, an APHIS spokesperson said via email Thursday.

USDA and CFIA rules will require that imported table stock potatoes from P.E.I. — and the seed potatoes used to produce those table stock potatoes — must originate from fields not known to be infested with potato wart or associated with known infestations, APHIS said Thursday.

The table stock potatoes, APHIS said, “must be washed in P.E.I. to remove soil, treated with a sprout inhibitor, and graded to meet the U.S. No 1 standard. Shipments must be officially inspected by (CFIA) and certified as meeting USDA requirements.”

Meanwhile, seed potatoes from P.E.I. for planting in the U.S. “are not allowed importation at this time,” the APHIS spokesperson said separately.

APHIS said it “will continue to work with Canada to increase confidence in its long-term management plan for potato wart, specifically to finish processing remaining samples associated with recent detections, to expand surveillance of non-regulated fields in P.E.I., and to continue its national surveillance program.”

“USDA bases all our agricultural trade decisions on sound science,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in Thursday’s release. “We are confident that table stock potatoes can enter the United States with appropriate safeguards in place to ensure the U.S. potato industry remains protected.”

CFIA, Bibeau said Thursday, “will work in collaboration with industry to implement the new export requirements for the U.S. in short order” and will complete its ongoing investigations in P.E.I. and technical work to provide APHIS with the “necessary, science-based assurances in order to fully restore the trade.”

APHIS’ announcement comes as Canada’s federal opposition Conservatives said earlier this week that the Canadian government was “no closer to a solution” on the matter “and P.E.I. farmers are paying the price.”

“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,” Conservative ag critic John Barlow said Monday in a statement.

“It is heartbreaking for P.E.I. 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 P.E.I. will be felt for generations to come.”

Exports of fresh potatoes were allowed to resume last month from P.E.I. to the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, which is considered to be at low risk for the disease as it has no commercial potato industry of its own.

The Canadian government in December pledged up to $28 million to help P.E.I. potato producers manage the surplus of potatoes resulting from the U.S. export suspension.

A resulting program, which also included $12.2 million in provincial funding, was formally launched in February with the goal of “diverting as many potatoes as possible to processors, packers and food banks.”

Where needed, the program was also expected to help P.E.I. potato growers cover the cost of “environmentally-sound destruction of surplus potatoes” at a rate of up to 8.5 cents per pound.

The U.S. in 2020 was by far P.E.I.’s biggest customer for potatoes, taking $476.9 million in fresh or chilled and processed potato goods, or just over 92 per cent of the province’s total potato exports, the province said last fall. Those product categories alone formed almost 84 per cent of the province’s total agricultural and agri-food exports last year. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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