Andrew Smith doesn’t need new things to worry about. As a potato farmer, he already frets about the rain. The frost. Wireworm. Blight. Pests. Weeds. Rising fertilizer, labour and fuel costs. On summer nights, he stresses so much about his irrigation system that he sleeps in the fields in his pickup truck, waiting for something to break down.
Red dirt stains decades of business cards and notes in Andrew Smith's farm office in Newton, P.E.I. As the damage from the U.S. border closure continues to mount, Smith is still unsure what to plant this season. They say potatoes have helped finance community hockey rinks, church renovations, fire hall upgrades and school fundraisers. Those kinds of projects are in jeopardy as farms trim their budgets.
“None of this helps rural Prince Edward Island. If the jobs aren’t there and the income isn’t there, there’s no reason to live there anymore,” Mr. Smith said. “If someone comes to me today and says ‘we’re doing this community project, will you support it,’ I don’t know if I could. I’ve got a lot of lost income and it’s going to take me a long time to make that up.”
In the company’s packing plant, a new processing line for flavoured miniature baking potatoes sits covered under plastic. A year ago, this equipment was supposed to serve an expanding niche market in American grocery stores. In part because the ban was prompted by the discovery of potato wart in just two fields – not a widespread outbreak – farmers here complain that the response to the problem has been complicated by politics and propaganda, much of it pushed by the American potato industry. The export ban came as the island’s farms were celebrating a record harvest.
What’s especially frustrating for some farmers here is that Cavendish Farms, a frozen French fry company that is the largest buyer of processing potatoes on PEI, also operates the farm where the wart was first discovered last fall. As a processor, the company isn’t affected by the export ban, yet it has benefited from the border closure, which has depressed local prices for the potatoes it buys.
Business Business Latest News, Business Business Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: globeandmail - 🏆 5. / 92 Read more »
Source: GlobalNational - 🏆 81. / 51 Read more »