Canada: Prince Edward Island growers need to develop international trade
“Some of the companies we’re working with have said, ‘Guys you can move further afield,’” Don Northcott of Real Potatoes, seed potato suppliers. So, “We’re trying to get the exclusive rights licences for Central and South America for some of these varieties.”
He believes there is a growing demand for potatoes, but that more needs to be done to promote this produce. “We just haven’t been pounding on the doors long enough, but we need to be doing things in P.E.I. that make us a little bit more competitive and we need to get out and do some travelling and variety trials and marketing, and we’re doing that,” he said.
“One of the big problems we have is we haven’t had a very good reputation in maintaining virus disease levels here on P.E.I.”
There’s also a lack of new varieties of spuds.
“We’re still offering the varieties that you could have bought here back in the ‘50s,” added Northcott. Island producers are still shipping Kennebecs, for instance, but the market is limited.
He says that Prince Edward Island is just picking up the business that is being rejected by European potato producers.
"They get the contracts first because we’re almost $2,000 a container more costly than any European supplier ".
“Some of the markets that we’ve been traditionally selling to have developed their own seed potato systems… that’s really changing the market.”
A lot of the countries that used to import the potatoes have now improved their agricultural production and can produce their own crops. uruguay, for example, now only buys one tenth of the potatoes it used to.
“There’s lot of work to be done to develop seed export business,” Northcott said. “Really, the potato industry hasn’t invested anything in 20 years in seed potato marketing… We’re almost like a garage that’s not on the main highway anymore. You’ve got to get people to your door and get them buying.”
“The markets exist. People have got to get on the airplanes and go and visit and shake hands with people and get business,” he said. “There’s business in Montenegro, Serbia and Croatia, Albania, Bosnia.”
Source: www.journalpioneer.com/
