The U.S. can’t allow potato wart to enter the country, the senators say
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
U.S. lawmakers are asking Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to ensure the U.S. potato industry is safe from potential diseases coming from Canada.
Specifically, senators are asking the USDA to implement measures to prevent potato wart from entering the U.S. through imports of potatoes from Prince Edward Island (PEI)
“Although the fungus that causes potato wart is currently not known to be present in the United States, it has been consistently detected in PEI fields since its initial detection more than 20 years ago,” a July 16 letter to Secretary Vilsack says. “Potato wart can lie dormant in the soil for decades and remain a viable phytosanitary threat. There is no treatment available to eliminate it from contaminated farmland.”
The bipartisan letter includes signatures from Senators Steve Daines (R-Mont.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-ME).
In 2021, two PEI fields were confirmed to have potato wart.
This lead then-Canadian Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to suspend exports of potatoes to the U.S.
That November, the Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service (APHIS) asked Customs and Border Protection agents to refuse all potato shipments from PEI.
Potato wart can lie dormant in the soil for years and remain a threat to the crop. If left unmanaged, the disease can cause 100 percent yield loss.
And there’s no treatment available.
In April 2022, the U.S. started to receive potato imports from PEI again.
But the clearance process to ensure the potatoes are free from potato wart aren’t thorough and need to be expedited, the senators say.
“Most notably, USDA does not require any testing of PEI fields prior to potatoes being cleared for export, despite the fact that USDA regulations identify soil testing as the most effective tool to detect potato wart,” the senators wrote. “While we understand that CFIA seeks public input on the implementation of additional mitigation measures, the timeframe for action is years down the line, when the threat of potato wart entering the United States is already here.”
The senators have outlined three measures the USDA can take to ensure proper protection of the U.S. potato industry.
One is to restrict bulk shipments into smaller packages.
Bulk shipments of potatoes are separated into smaller packages before being shipped across the country. This can increase the risk of spreading potato wart.
“USDA should limit these large bulk shipments to smaller sizes (20 pounds or less), so that any waste that occurs during the repacking process is significantly retained in Canada,” the senators suggested.
A second suggestion is to limit large retail shipments so customers know the potatoes are either for consumption or cultivation.
The U.S. potato industry is worried sales of retail potatoes may result in people planting infected potatoes unknowingly.
And the third idea is to control the waste generated by processing plants.
Facilities processing PEI potatoes should have USDA supervision.
“Such compliance agreements should prohibit the conversion of waste potatoes into livestock feed, because the process could embed potato wart into agricultural land,” the senators wrote.
A recent Canadian survey found no traces of potato wart.
The CFIA collected more than 2,000 soil samples across Canada for its National Survey for Potato Wart and found no evidence of the potato wart pathogen.