CANADIAN POTATO ACREAGE UP AT ALMOST 380,000 ACRES

Jul 16, 2021

Statistics Canada released its first estimate of potato acreage on July 16 from data obtained with a survey of Canadian potato growers.

“Please note that Quebec data was not available during the collection period, so a five-year average of their seeded acreage was used in its place,” comments Kevin MacIsaac, general manager, United Potato Growers of Canada. “Quebec data and corresponding Canadian data will be updated on December 7, when the estimates for harvested area, yield and production are released.”

The 2021 potato acreage is estimated at 378,624 acres. This is an increase of 5.3 per cent above 2020. A year ago, the 2020 acreage had declined below 2019 plantings due to COVID-19 market uncertainty. This year’s increase, predominantly in major processing provinces, helps bring supply in the industry back to meet demand increases in the industry that began pre-COVID.

The acreage of potatoes planted in Canada, is still well below its peak of 457,500 acres which occurred back in 2003.The most significant acreage increases in 2021 occurred in the western provinces of Alberta and Manitoba, where each area has had processing plant expansion in the last two to three years.

Alberta producers planted an additional 7,823 acres (+13.1%). Manitoba growers planted an additional 7,200 acres (10.1%). The third largest increase is in New Brunswick where an additional 4,600 acres (9.2%) are estimated to be planted to help supply a formed line expansion for the fry plant in that province.

Ontario’s increase (5%) is also driven by strong processing demand – for chips, not fries. Prince Edward Island reports an increase (1.1%) at 84,500 acres as it continues to plant the largest acreage in the country.

The survey has used Quebec’s five-year average of 43,000 acres, however industry expected acreage to be at least equal to last year’s 45,638 acres with demand increases identified for both fresh and processing sectors.

It is also surprising, says MacIsaac, to see a decrease reported in British Columbia (5%) down to 6,000 acres. Acreage in Saskatchewan moves back up closer to traditional levels at 6,200 acres. Nova Scotia reports a decline of 100 acres this year.

Source : United Potato Growers of Canada

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”