b'ONTARIO NEW BRUNSWICKKevin Brubacher, general manager Jean-Maurice Daigle, director of market of the Ontario Potato Board information for Potatoes New BrunswickPlanting season is just around the corner! Spring has officiallyThe New Brunswick 2021 crop produced the highest number of arrived however the cold weather has not left us just yet. Atpotatoes on record, but late September rain events have made the time of writing this most of the snow melted in early Marchstoring this years crop a challenge. Excessive rain during harvest across the province. Since then, colder weather has returnedhas meant some areas have battled with storage issues most of and kept soil temperatures relatively low. We expect planting tothe winter. Processors have adjusted and worked with growers to begin the second week of April in southern Ontario with otherminimize, as much as possible, any storage losses. areas beginning near the end of April and into May.Processors in New Brunswick have been running at full It has been a trying year in terms of marketing in the facecapacity to take advantage of the strong demand for frozen of major issues hitting the Canadian industry. Producers areproducts and to utilize as much uncontracted potatoes as looking forward to getting into the field to do what they do best,possible. Processors have also been steadily shipping processing grow potatoes! Its expected due to the rise in input costs we areraw to western Canada to supplement production shortage and facing, planted acreage across the province will be lower thankeep the western plants running full.last year.Payables at the factory are running below five-year averages Quality has been good on the storage crop, and well havemainly due to the crop being slightly lower quality. Growers are enough potatoes to carry us through to new crop.also culling significantly more spud on grading.Eugenia Banks hosted the Ontario Potato Conference virtuallyTable potatoes were not affected by the same issues as the on March 2. She put together an excellent program and the eventprocessing crop and are keeping well. Packers have been busy was highly attended by industry from across the country. Thankssupplying their usual markets and despite transportation issues, Eugenia! movement has been strong.I wish you all a successful planting season! Transportation has been a major hurdle in the east as growers, packers and processors have had to deal with lack of transport availability. This has limited the amount of product that could leave the area to address the shortages in the west both in QUEBEC Canada and across the border.As we get closer to planting growers are keeping a close eye Sarah-Maude Larose, project officer for Leson the increasing costs of inputs, fuel, labour and materials and Producteurs de pommes de terre du Qubecequipment as these costs are increasing substantially. These factors and world events currently causing unrest make planting Our annual general meeting was held at the end of March withthis 2022 crop a risky ordeal. excellent attendance, from growers and industry representativesThe global pandemic due to COVID-19 seems to show signseven if hosted virtually. We had a great lineup of speakers,of allowing the world to return to normal. This will once again but we certainly wish to resume to an in-person format for nextallow industry to resume face to face meetings and travel. We year. look forward to seeing colleagues at industry events soon!Usage of the large crop in Quebec is progressing well. Like other areas, the business is driven by the fry sector where the demand is coming back strongly. Movement of the table stock has been above averagethe chain stores have done a good job of promoting potatoes.Contract talks are still ongoing with the processors. The growers are expecting a good increase this year to cover their cost of productionthe forefront of the discussions. As we look toward planting the 2022 crop, we strongly encourage all growers to plant only for known markets.SPUDSMART.COM Spring 202259'