Potato Council expresses renewed concerns about PEI potato wart

The Nationwide Potato Council, the lobbying group for the U.S. potato trade, this week expressed issues about experiences about extra circumstances of potato wart being discovered on Prince Edward Island, which exports potatoes into america.
NPC CEO Kam Quarles, citing experiences from the Canadian Meals Inspection Company and the Agriculture Division’s Animal and Plant Well being Inspection Service, mentioned, “This newest discover reinforces USDA APHIS’s willpower that the extent of PEI’s potato wart infestation is probably going bigger than reported by Canadian authorities and, even with present mitigation measures in place, potato wart is nearly sure to be launched to different rising areas, together with to U.S. potato manufacturing areas.“
“The affect of illness unfold into the U.S. could be completely catastrophic for American potato growers and all the North American potato worth chain that depends on international markets,” Quarles mentioned.
“The USDA report mixed with continued discoveries of potato wart in PEI fields validates NPC’s place that the 2021 PEI export ban was solely acceptable and our concern that reopening the export market earlier than the completion of complete testing was untimely and put our trade in danger.”