Federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said last week he hopes Alberta seed potatoes now excluded from the United States will be planted in U.S. fields this spring.
After a day of talks in Washington March 27 that included a session with U.S. agriculture secretary Ed Schafer, Ritz told a news conference there is agreement between the two governments to increase testing and to get Alberta seed potatoes moving south.
The border was closed late last year after golden nematode was discovered on two Alberta potato farms.
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Ritz said penalizing the entire Alberta industry for results on two farms violates the rules.
“The existing prohibition is clearly inconsistent with our bilateral agreements on potato trade,” he told reporters. “Secretary Schafer and I agreed that we must move quickly to put Alberta seed potatoes into American fields this spring.”
He said U.S. Department of Agriculture officials have agreed to help with testing and Idaho potato growers who already have golden nematode in the state are calling for Canadian supplies.
“They (USDA) will be giving us in the next couple of days a list of the types of seed potatoes they are looking for and will actually do the testing on them first to get them ahead of the queue so that we can market those into Idaho sooner rather than later because potato planting season is within a few days of happening,” said the minister.
“I think there is a good joint push to get this done. Of course, they need our seed potatoes and we’re happy to ship them.”
Bob Jensen, general manager of Edmonton Potato Growers, said he hadn’t heard Ritz’s comments about a possible border opening, but he would welcome it.
While it’s too late to ship potatoes to some markets, Jensen said American customers have said they’ll take the more valuable Canadian seed potatoes into June.
“The window is definitely closing every day that goes by.”
Jensen said if a deal can be made within the next couple weeks, Canadians may still salvage some of their 2007 seed potato crop.
“If they can possibly broker a deal, we have an opportunity to send potatoes down there still.”
Ritz said he also warned Schafer that country-of-origin labelling legislation now included in versions of farm bill legislation before Congress must not be a disguised trade barrier.
“The U.S. Congress has to make sure that COOL doesn’t choke the livestock industry on both sides of the border with unnecessary stacks of this mandatory paperwork,” he said.
Ritz said he would not rule out launching a challenge under the North American Free Trade Agreement if the final version of the COOL rule does restrict trade.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said. “I wouldn’t rule out any of our options at this point.”
