LETHBRIDGE, Alta. — The arrival of McDonald’s restaurants in Mexico could mean a golden opportunity for Canadian seed potato growers.
A growing middle class has developed a taste for french fries sold by fast-food companies that are springing up all over Mexico.
The Mexicans won’t allow seed potatoes into their country at present because they want to keep out diseases like potato virus PVY. But without new seed stock to grow better processing varieties, Mexican growers will struggle against a wall of American fresh and processed potatoes tumbling across their border now that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is law.
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Mexico grows potatoes year round with most sold as fresh product. However the processing sector is complaining it can’t get enough good chipping and frying varieties because of the ban on foreign seed potatoes, said Stu Garvin of Harvest Foods in Saskatoon. His company was hired by the Prairie Potato Council to check out world market opportunities for Western Canadian potatoes. The council heard this report at its annual meeting in Lethbridge.
The favored varieties are Alpha, a white-skinned table potato and Atlantic, used for processing.
“The potential market is about 180,000 to 200,000 tonnes (of seed potatoes) and that would take a long time to develop, probably 10 or more years. but I think it’s got to happen if the Mexicans are going to hang onto their potato industry,” said Garvin.
His company recommends growers from the West and Atlantic provinces join with government promotions and spend $2 million over five years to convince Mexico to do business with Canada. About $400,000 could be invested by producers, with the rest coming from provincial and federal coffers.
First, they should try to hire a Spanish-speaking agronomist to sell the virtues of Canadian seed potatoes. Spanish brochures could be printed showing the benefits of using Canadian seed.
Establish trading partnership
Mexican potato growers have a three-year-old national organization called CONPAPA and Canada could work with it to set up varietal trials at select sites in Mexico. Mexicans could also be given tours of farms in the West, Ontario and Atlantic Canada. In exchange, Canadians could visit Mexican farmers to establish the personal relationships necessary to set up trading partnerships, said Garvin.
About 60 percent of the Mexican potato industry is dominated by 100 large and efficient producers in the northern states. The rest of the production is grown by peasant farmers in the south. In total they grow about 1.2 million pounds a year. Because of plant health restrictions at the border, growers have a difficult time getting high quality seed. With the exception of some potatoes being smuggled in, growers are using Mexican seed.
Adopting Canadian seed would likely happen first in the northern states like Nuevo Leon and Chihuahua where production has soared by 75 and 50 percent respectively in the last three years.
Besides the import ban another obstacle is high transportation costs to ship the seed there. The Mexicans would prefer to have it shipped by rail, which is costly. They claim there is too much risk of theft from trucks at border crossings, said Garvin.
His company is looking at rail rates and backhaul trucks that would take produce to Canada.
