Canadian seed potato sales to Mexico are being stifled by Mexican corruption and political interference, potato growers complained last week.
“They have raised phytosanitary issues, quality issues, everything,” Al Stuart, manager of Potato Growers of Alberta, said in a March 13 interview during the annual meeting of the Canadian Horticultural Council. “We’ve tried to accommodate them, even though we don’t think it is business going on there.”
Then last week, another hurdle arose.
“This week, trucks were stopped at the border and a fee was demanded.”
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John Konst of Outlook, Sask., president of the Saskatchewan Seed Potato Growers’ Association, had a different name for it.
“They are demanding under-the-table payments,” he said. “You have to pay bribes.”
Canadian agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief said he has tried to find a solution.
During recent meetings in Paris, he met for half an hour with the Mexican agriculture minister to complain.
“We had just one issue, seed potatoes,” Vanclief told Stuart during a question and answer session at the horticultural council meeting. “He knows about the problems.”
Stuart said the Alberta industry has been trying to develop the Mexican market to take advantage of a Canada-Mexico agreement signed three years ago.
This year, growers hoped to export as much as 6,000 tonnes after a record 4,000 were sold last year. There have been dreams that the market eventually could expand to take as much as 15,000 tonnes of Alberta potatoes.
Instead, he predicted sales this year could fall back to the 1,000 tonne level if Mexican roadblocks are not removed.
After they raised quality and safety issues, Alberta growers agreed to pay to have a Mexican inspector come to Alberta.
“That is larding on more costs to duplicate something Canadian inspectors already do,” he complained. “But then, even after all that, they still stop our trucks at the border.”
Tensions over expansion
Meanwhile, tensions continue between prairie provinces over the efforts by the Saskatchewan government to expand the province’s potato industry in the irrigation area around Lake Diefenbaker.
Since 1994, Saskatchewan’s potato acreage has doubled to 5,000.
Lately, it has been in part through the encouragement and financial support of Spudco., a company owned by the Crown corporation Sask Water.
There are plans to add at least another 1,000 acres.
Potato growers from neighboring provinces have complained that Saskatchewan is using subsidies to buy a potato industry.
They worry exports of those potatoes could lead other countries to challenge the seed potato export industry under trade agreements.
Konst said he supports the expansion of the industry but understands the concern.
