No more potato wart found in P.E.I., Canadian Food Inspection Agency says

Canada has completed an important step for eventually resuming exports of fresh potatoes to the United States from the province of Prince Edward Island, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said on Friday.

Canada unilaterally halted the shipments in November from the province after finding the potato wart fungus on two farms in October, the first in 21 years.

The United States had said it would ban all imports of fresh potatoes from the province unless Canada took further action, a measure Ottawa says would be hard to overturn.

One U.S. demand was for Canada to check for wart in fields of seed potatoes. These are exported and then grown to maturity and the risk of contagion would be greater if they had the wart.

The CFIA carried out a national survey that detected no wart in seed potatoes in fields not regulated by Ottawa. This, it said, was information Washington wanted.

“(This) was provided to the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service earlier today, and should serve to provide reassurances they need that it is safe to resume the trade of fresh potatoes,” the CFIA said in a statement.

“We do not anticipate that it will lead to any immediate change in the current prohibition,” it added, saying Washington was seeking other information. This, the CFIA indicated, could take months to provide.

The U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service did not respond to a request for comment. Friday is a public holiday in the United States.

Potato wart can decrease crop yields but poses no threat to human health or food safety, the CFIA says.

Prince Edward Island grew about 20 per cent of the national harvest in 2020. The crop is worth more than C$1 billion ($781 million) annually to the province’s economy.