Help for “a hell of a situation”

Potato planting underway on May 10 along Route 26 in Alexandra, P.E.I. (Michele Lawlor photo)

by Zack Metcalfe

P.E.I. hasn’t been able to sell seed potatoes off-Island since November, when the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) enacted a ministerial order aimed at preventing the spread of potato wart, which has been discovered in 33 Island fields.

Parts of this ministerial order have since softened. For instance, fresh potatoes can now leave P.E.I. for some national and international markets provided they’re cleared and treated with sprout inhibitor. But seed potatoes, which can’t be treated and must eventually come in direct contact with destination soils, are considered a prime vector for the spread of potato wart, and their sale off-Island remains as restricted as it was in November. This, to say the least, has left a lot of farms in limbo.

“Those seed potato producers are literally the foundation of our entire industry,” said Greg Donald, general manager of the P.E.I. Potato Board. “They produce seed not only for off-Island, but also for our table and process growers.”

The CFIA is in the process of screening Island fields for any additional cases of potato wart, work which is expected to last until late 2023. The agency has made it clear its ministerial order will remain in place throughout the 2022 growing season. With this temporary loss of markets, Donald said many seed growers will need to scale down production, putting more acres into alternative crops such as cereals, corn, and oilseeds. He added that there’s a risk of some farmers transitioning away from seed potatoes altogether.

“We want to keep those seed farms around until they’re able to sell off-Island again,” said Donald.

NEW PROJECT

To this end, P.E.I.’s Department of Agriculture and Land has launched the “Soil Building for Seed Producers Project,” which offers farms $1,000 per acre of land removed from seed production in 2022, provided those same acres are instead planted with beneficial “soil-building” crops, enriching them with nutrients, organic matter, and sequestered carbon. Qualifying crops include both annuals and perennials, such as ryegrass, Pearl millet, sorghum-sudangrass, Winter triticale, and Red clover. Those crops must remain unharvested in 2022.

This project will also pay $1,000 per acre to extend existing rotations of soil-building crops. Examples might include fields planted in 2021 with timothy, clover, or alfalfa. Instead of having those beneficial crops plowed under and replanted this spring with seed potatoes, the project would have those rotations extended throughout the year. In this case, extended crops could be harvested this fall.

To qualify, farms must demonstrate a loss of seed potato markets, reduce their seed potato production by at least 10 percent from 2021, and reduce their overall potato production.

The Department of Agriculture and Land was already promoting soil-building crop rotations by way of its “Soil First Farming” initiative launched last year. Department representative Kip Ready said the Soil Building for Seed Producers Project is an effort to marry the benefits of Soil First Farming with the need of many seed growers to reduce their acreage this year.

The new project has a $3-million budget, enough to compensate farmers for 3,000 acres taken out of potato production.

STILL TALKING

“The goal is that they’ll be able to build the soil up in the interim,” said Ready. “There’s a lot of work left to do for our seed potato industry, and our department continues to have regular discussions with CFIA on how we can best support that industry right now.”

The project was conceived with input from the P.E.I. Potato Board, and while Donald would rather have seen this money come from the federal government several months ago, he’s grateful the province has stepped up.

With high input prices, Donald said it’s costing farmers $4,000 per acre to grow fresh and processing potatoes this year, and seed potatoes are even more expensive to grow. So, while cutting back on acreage will reduce revenues for participating growers, they will save that $4,000 per acre. That said, it costs money to have acres out of production. Fixed costs such as taxes and equipment payments aren’t going away. That’s where the $1,000 per acre comes in, said Donald, allowing seed growers to build up their soils while softening the financial burden of having acres out of production.

Donald said that Island farmers are very disciplined these days, only planting what they have a market for. The $3 million in government money is being offered to keep them in the game, ready and able to plant seed potatoes the moment off-Island markets once again become available.

“We hope that good science and common sense will prevail with CFIA,” said Donald. “We’re pushing for a decision by this fall. They’ve made it very clear this year is out, but we’d like to see it changed by the fall.”

CAME TOO LATE

The Soil Building for Seed Producers Project came too late for David Francis, who typically grows approximately 400 acres of seed potatoes on his farm in Lady Fane, P.E.I., in partnership with his son Brett. By the time news of the project reached Francis on May 13, planting had already begun.

“Maybe if I’d had this information a month ago or two months ago, we might have worked it in with our farm, but right today, we’ve got all our corn seed planted and we’re sowing our grain as we speak,” said Francis on May 20. “We’ve got our seed potatoes (started) and we’re going to plant some alternative crops this year, too, like hemp and soybean.”

The majority of Francis’s seed potatoes have always been sold on P.E.I., so his product will still have a market this year despite export restrictions. That said, he expects to reduce his seed acreage by seven to 10 percent this year, and not just because of potato wart. The rising costs of inputs and an uncooperative climate have made seed potatoes a very expensive enterprise. Even though he likely won’t be able to participate in the Soil Building for Seed Producers Project, given its very specific requirements and its late arrival, he’s grateful something is being done on behalf of seed producers.

“It’s nice for me to know there are people out there trying to do good things for my farm, to keep us sustainable under a hell of a situation,” said Francis. “Nobody can imagine the pressures from last fall and winter, especially on young people.”