Province offers to buy P.E.I. potato wart index fields, take them out of agricultural production

Gwyneth Egan · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 12, 2025 5:00 PM EDT | Last Updated: June 12

Prince Edward Island is launching a caller programme that makes wealth available to bargain fields wherever murphy wart has been confirmed successful the past. 

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has designated 37 sites crossed the Island arsenic scale fields — oregon areas wherever the soilborne fungus that causes the disfiguring illness has been identified adjacent once. 

"This announcement is thing that has been supported by growers connected P.E.I.," said Greg Donald, the wide manager of the P.E.I. Potato Board. 

"It's an further furniture that gives afloat assurance that determination volition beryllium nary hazard from this disease." 

Land that is sold to the state done the buy-back programme volition not beryllium farmed again, but could beryllium utilized for "trees, vigor solutions and preservation," a spokesperson for the authorities said successful an email statement.

It volition besides lend to the province's extremity of protecting 7 per cent of P.E.I.'s land, the email said. 

The authorities would not accidental however overmuch wealth is being acceptable speech for the fund, with the spokesperson calling it "a demand-driven program... Purchasing the onshore volition beryllium conducted done an autarkic appraisal that reasonably represents the market."

Land owners wanting to merchantability their scale onshore are being told to use done the province's webpage.

Even successful cases wherever the affected onshore country successful the scale tract is small, the full tract has to beryllium enactment retired of committee and removed from cultivation production to destruct further spread, Donald said. 

"The main hazard pathway with this organism is soil," helium said. 

A past of marketplace chaos

Potato wart was archetypal discovered connected P.E.I. successful 2000, and past again successful 2021. Although the fungus poses nary wellness hazard to humans, it leaves potatoes distorted by warts and makes them unmarketable. 

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency banned fresh P.E.I. array potatoes from being sold into the United States for 4 months aft it was recovered successful the state successful the autumn of 2021. Some farmers with excess merchandise were forced to destruct millions of pounds of their crop, and the merchantability of effect potatoes into the U.S. remains banned. 

The provincial effect to the 2021 murphy wart situation tin beryllium looked to arsenic a exemplary for dealing with works wellness issues, Donald said. 

"The connection to our customers… whether present connected P.E.I. oregon crossed Canada oregon astir the world, is that if you're going to bash concern with P.E.I., P.E.I. potatoes, you're going to get precisely what you need, erstwhile you request it," helium said. 

"They're going to beryllium the safest potatoes due to the fact that of however this contented has been managed and the ongoing surveillance and galore layers of hazard mitigation [that] person been enactment successful place." 

The state precocious expanded its hazard mitigation measures with a caller National Potato Wart Response Plan. 

The P.E.I. Index Field Buy-Back programme volition grow connected investments the state has made in the Island's murphy manufacture and assistance fortify it, the authorities said. 

"We saw an accidental to payment our full manufacture astatine a clip erstwhile commercialized is of the utmost importance," Minister of Agriculture Bloyce Thompson was quoted arsenic saying successful a quality release.