While Idaho potato growers hope that exports of their crop to Canada and Mexico will resume soon, Canadian officials are not rushing to conclusions.
Canada and Mexico recently suspended fresh potato imports from Idaho after the potato cyst nematode was found for the first time in the United States on an eastern Idaho farm.
The nematode, a microscopic wormlike pest, feeds on the roots of potato plants and can cause production losses.
“From our perspective, they’re doing the right things at this point, but we don’t have the information that’s going to tell us that we can move ahead and maintain or relax our temporary measures,” said Alain Boucher, a seed potato specialist for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
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The potato cyst nematode appears to be confined to one farm and the affected land is under quarantine, said Frank Muir, president and chief executive officer of the Idaho Potato Commission. That represents about 500 acres out of the 350,000 acres seeded to potatoes in Idaho each year.
“All indications are that this is very, very minor,” Muir said last week. “Because of our aggressive testing, we found this very early in any type of situation that might exist here.”
Idaho exports only a small percentage of its potatoes to Canada and Mexico each year. However, Muir said exports to Mexico increased over the past three years and his commission also wants to increase exports to Canada.
“We’re confident that as our international trading partners come over and share in this investigation that they will, in the hopefully not-too-far-distant future, reopen their borders to us.”
The discovery also prompted Japan to ban all fresh potato imports from the United States, according to news reports.
