The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) on Thursday announced an agreement with Mexico’s national service for agri-food health, safety and quality (SENASICA) to allow shipments to Mexico of Canadian potatoes for consumption or processing.

CFIA said it will “work closely with the potato sector in the coming months as next steps are implemented.”

WHY IT MATTERS: Almost 93 per cent of Canada’s fresh potato exports by dollar value in the 2024-25 marketing year were to the U.S. alone.

Canada’s potato exports to Mexico today are almost entirely in frozen potato products. According to Statistics Canada export data for 2024-25, Canada shipped about 55,526 tonnes of frozen potatoes, valued at about C$77.7 million, to Mexico.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA/FAS) says Canada that year held about a 34 per cent share of Mexico’s total imports of frozen potatoes, compared to a 52 per cent share for the U.S. and 14 per cent for Belgium.

Meanwhile, citing information from Trade Data Monitor (TDM), FAS says the U.S. has been “Mexico’s sole supplier of fresh potato imports” in recent years. In the 2023-24 marketing year, those imports came in at 204,165 tonnes.

The bulk of Mexico’s potato consumption is supplied by its domestic growers, who produced about 2.12 million tonnes in 2024.

A 2025 FAS report on the Mexican potato market said its consumers favour the domestically-grown Alpha potato variety, and “the dominance of domestically produced potatoes in the Mexican market, accounting for 91 per cent of domestic consumption, limits awareness of other potato options among Mexican households.”

FAS noted Mexico requires any fresh potato imports to be packaged in 20-pound bags or smaller, adding that Mexican consumers prefer to hand-select produce and buy relatively smaller quantities more frequently.

Imported fresh potatoes in Mexico, FAS said, today go primarily instead to “restaurants seeking to offer differentiated premium products to their customers.”

Mexico’s new move to allow Canadian fresh potatoes follows a trade mission last October by Canada’s federal agriculture minister Heath MacDonald, during which the two countries “agreed to enhance regulatory and technical co-operation” under a 2025-2028 action plan.

Those talks continued during another trade mission to Mexico last month, led by Dominic LeBlanc, minister for Canada-U.S. trade, CFIA said Thursday. MacDonald also took part in that mission, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

The 2025-2028 action plan called for the two countries to make progress on a sanitary and phytosanitary work plan to improve market access for agricultural products for both countries’ consumers and processors, and on mutual recognition of electronic certification for plant, animal, aquaculture and fishing products.

The post Path cleared to Mexico for fresh Canadian potatoes, supplanting U.S. spuds appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

This is the last of its informal seed modernization consultations before it publishes draft amendments to seed regulations the agency said in a news release. The process of modernizing Canada’s seed regulations has been ongoing since 2020 — since 2019 for the potato sector.

Up for feedback are a series of proposed changes to seed potatoes and Part 2 and 3 of the Seeds regulation. The proposals fit into three categories:

• Reduce red tape
• Support the well-being of the industry
• Protect farmers, consumers, markets and the environment

Feedback on the costs and benefits of the proposed policy decisions is also welcome, the CFIA said.

The online consultations are open to any interested parties, including industry members and the general public. They close Feb. 5.

The agency said it will report results of the consultation early in 2026. It will then seek targeted input from stakeholders before publishing draft regulatory amendments in the Canada Gazette.

The post CFIA looks for feedback on proposed seed potato rule changes appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

A new analysis of 450 genomes from cultivated potatoes and 56 genomes of wild potato species has revealed that the potato lineage originated through natural interbreeding between a wild tomato plant and a potato-like species in South America about 9 million years ago.

This hybridization event led to the appearance of the nascent potato plant’s tuber, an enlarged structure housing nutrients underground, according to the researchers, who also identified two crucial genes involved in tuber formation. Whereas in a tomato plant the edible part is the fruit, in the potato plant it is the tuber.

“Potatoes are truly one of humanity’s most remarkable food staples, combining extraordinary versatility, nutritional value and cultural ubiquity in ways few crops can match,” said Sanwen Huang, a genome biologist and plant breeder at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and senior author of the study published on Friday in the journal Cell.

“People eat potatoes using virtually every cooking method – baking, roasting, boiling, steaming and frying. Despite being stereotyped as carbohydrates, potatoes offer vitamin C, potassium, fiber and resistant starch, and are naturally gluten-free, low-fat and satiating – a nutrient-dense calorie source,” Huang added.

Resistant starch is a type of carbohydrate that resists digestion in the small intestine and ferments in the large intestine, feeding beneficial bacteria in the gut.

Etuberosum to Solanum tuberosum

The modern-day potato plant’s scientific name is Solanum tuberosum. Its two parents identified in the study were plants that were the ancestors of a potato-like species now found in Peru named Etuberosum, which closely resembles the potato plant but lacks a tuber, and the tomato plant.

These two plants themselves shared a common ancestor that lived about 14 million years ago, and were able to naturally interbreed when the fortuitous hybridization event occurred five million years after they had diverged from each other.

“This event led to a reshuffling of genes such that the new lineage produced tubers, allowing these plants to expand into the newly created cold, dry habitats in the rising Andes mountain chain,” said botanist Sandra Knapp of the Natural History Museum in London, a co-author of the study.

This hybridization event coincided with the rapid uplift of the Andes. With a tuber, the potato plant was able to adapt to the changing regional environment and thrive in the harsh conditions of the mountains.

“Tubers can store nutrients for cold adaptation, and enable asexual reproduction to meet the challenge of the reduced fertility in cold conditions. These allowed the plant to survive and rapidly expand,” Huang said.

Study may improve potato breeding

The study’s findings, according to the researchers, may help guide improved cultivated potato breeding to address environmental challenges that crops presently face due to factors such as climate change.

There currently are roughly 5,000 potato varieties. The potato is the world’s third most important food crop, after rice and wheat, for human consumption, according to the Peru-based International Potato Center research organization. China is the world’s leading potato producer.

“It always is hard to remove all the deleterious mutations in potato genomes in breeding, and this study opens a new door to make a potato free of deleterious mutations using the tomato as the chassis of synthetic biology,” Huang said.

The study also may open the door to generate a new crop species that could produce tomato fruit above ground and potato tubers below ground, according to Zhiyang Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

The potato and tomato are members of the nightshade family of flowering plants that also includes tobacco and peppers, among others. The study did not investigate the evolutionary origins of other tuberous root crops that originated in South America such as the sweet potato and yuca, which are members of different families of flowering plants.

While the parts of the tomato and potato plants that people eat are quite different, the plants themselves are very similar.

“We use different parts of these two species, fruits in tomatoes and tubers in potatoes,” Knapp said. “If you look at the flowers or leaves, these are very similar. And if you are lucky enough to let your potato plant produce fruits, they look just like little green tomatoes. But don’t eat them. They are not very nice.”

The post Evolutionary origins of the potato revealed – and a tomato was involved appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

The report added, “crop development remains ahead of typical seasonal progress.”

Among Alberta’s cereals, its winter crops were faring the best at 68 per cent good to excellent for fall rye and 62 per cent for winter wheat. The spring cereals were led by durum at 56 per cent good to excellent, followed by spring wheat, barley and oats at 51 per cent.

Canola lagged behind the other oilseeds at 45 per cent good to excellent, with mustard at 67 per cent and flax at 60 per cent.

As for the pulses, lentils were rated at 62 per cent good to excellent, followed by chickpeas at 55 per cent and dry peas at 52 per cent.

Also, mixed grains were pegged at 75 per cent good to excellent and potatoes at 99 per cent.

Alberta Agriculture said crop spraying was two-thirds complete, well ahead of the five-year average of 49 per cent.

The province’s surface soil moisture levels of 37 per cent good to excellent continued to lag behind the five-year average of 65 per cent.

However, there were significant improvements in the good to excellent ratings from the previous week.

• Northwest 50 per cent, up 16 points
• Peace 46 per cent, up 21 points
• Central 41 per cent, up 25 points
• Northeast 40 per cent, up 23 points
• South 25 per cent, up six points.

That also generated improvements in the subsurface soil levels.

• Peace 54 per cent, up 17 points
• Northwest 50 per cent, up 18 points
• Central 42 per cent, up seven points
• Northeast 35 per cent, up 18 points
• South 26 per cent, up seven points

The post Alberta crops 21 points below average but soil moisture improving appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

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.

The post New national potato wart plan in place for 2025 growing season appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

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.

The post CFIA’s 2024 potato wart survey comes back clean appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

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.

The post Potato growers’ feedback wanted in final response plan consultation appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

The south, central and Peace regions of Alberta wrapped up their harvests, while the northeast and northwest reached 97 per cent done.

The province’s sugar beets were 90 per cent harvested, the least advanced of the crops left to finish. Oats were next at 97 per cent completed, followed by canola at 98, then spring wheat, barley and flax at 99.

Average spring wheat yields came in at 44.7 bushels per acre provincewide, ranging from a low of 39.5 in the south to a high of 50.8 in the northwest. Barley gleaned 57.2 bu./ac. with a low of 52.6 in the central region to a high of 69 in the northwest. Oat yields were 67.9 bu./ac. overall, with the least in the south at 48.8 and the most in the northwest at 79.4.

Canola averaged 33.3 bu./ac. across Alberta, with the south at 27.1 and the northwest at 38.6. For dry peas, yields came in at 35.3 bu./ac. provincially, with the south at 34.3 and the Peace region at 38.4.

Surface soil moisture levels remained an issue at 41 per cent good to excellent, slipping four points from the previous week. Regionally, the south lost five points at 50 per cent good to excellent, the northeast was down three points at 24 per cent, and the northwest shed one point at 30 per cent. On the plus side, the south added five points at 43 per cent good to excellent, and the Peace gained six at 93 per cent.

As fieldwork continued, the fall-seeded crops were rated at 53 per cent good to excellent provincewide, 11 points below the five-year average. Pastures in Alberta dipped one point to 33 per cent good to excellent, two above the five-year average.

The post Alberta harvest wraps up appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

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.

The post Potato wart survey comes back clean appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

At 32.063 million hundredweight of potatoes this year, Alberta vaulted from third to first place as it improved on the previous year’s crop of 26.813 million. Manitoba moved into second spot from third with its harvest of 29.760 million cwt. following last year’s 26.139 million. Prince Edward Island saw its output reduced in 2023 to 25.813 million cwt. from 27.789 million. In 2023, the trio combined for 68 per cent of Canada’s total potato harvest of 128,801 million cwt.

Victoria Stamper, general manager of the United Potato Growers of Canada, noted production in Eastern Canada was mostly down in 2023. She said PEI was hit with rain during its harvest, while Quebec and New Brunswick contended with wet conditions through their summer and during harvest as well.

Stamper said Manitoba and especially Alberta saw greatly different conditions in 2023.

“Alberta has been in drought conditions for a few years now. They’ve been helped out with irrigation. Even that was getting tough. There were some growers who moved some their irrigation to from other crops to potatoes,” she commented.

StatCan calculated 397,232 acres of potatoes were seeded in Canada in 2023, of which 387,061 were harvested. That’s an improvement from 385,146 and 379,955 respectively in 2022. The average yield was up for a third consecutive year at 332.8 cwt. per acre compared to 325.1 in 2022 and 318.7 in 2021.

Alberta’s planted potato area came to 80,100 acres in 2023, up from 73,080 the previous year. Harvested acres rose to 76,440 from 71,325. Yields pushed past the 400 mark this year, at 419.5 cwt./ac. compared to 375.9 in 2022.

In Manitoba, planted acres nudged up to 81,000 in 2023 from 80,500 and those at harvest rose to 80,000 from 79,250. Yields improved to 372 cwt./ac. this year versus the 329.8 in 2022.

PEI’s potato acres saw some slight adjustments, with planted at 84,500 this year from 83,300 and harvested acres dipped to 83,000 from 83,200. Yields retreated to 311 cwt./ac. this year from the 334 in 2022.

As for the rest of the provinces, their potato crops were: New Brunswick 14.879 million cwt., Quebec 13.492 million, Ontario 8.602 million, British Columbia 2.140 million, Saskatchewan 1.780 million, Nova Scotia 222,000 and Newfoundland and Labrador 50,000.

Manitoba is scheduled to mark its Potato Production Days at the Canad Inns in Brandon from Jan. 24 to 25.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg. 

The post Canadian potato output rises in 2023  appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.