b"An Ongoing SagaOntario since the border has closed and itsome farms may not make it through this.Before exports to the U.S. were halted,doesn't make much of a hole in a nice pileWe have a huge amount of sympathy the P.E.I. potato industry was having itsof potatoes, Visser says. for what's going on there, Quarles says. best season in years. Following successiveHe doesnt know what will happenNo one takes any of this lightly. We want years of weather issues, growers into his seed stock come planting timeto see that testing resumed very quickly. P.E.I. had experienced perfect growingas he cant ship it to the U.S., and evenThe hope is that that testing will show that conditions and produced a record crop ofsales to other provinces in Canada arentthere are a substantial number of fields in 28.51 million hundredweight.guaranteed. The stress is mounting forP.E.I. that are clean and should be eligible The best crop I've ever seen yield- Visser, his brother Melis Visser, brother- to resume shipment.wise and also quality-wise, in a marketin-law Ian Gilroy, and his sons Jordan andOnce shipments do resume, however, it that needs it. Prices were record pricesCameron, who all work on the family farm. might be too late to restore relationships. right before the border closure, DonaldVisser isnt alone though in his stress,Visser worries he may not be able to explains. There's good demand andhowever. Many potato growers acrossrepair his Uruguay seed potato export it was going to be a year to make upthe province are facing many of the samerelationship. He also isnt sure what hes for some of those bad years when notissues. Good quality potatoes are sittinggoing to plant this growing season. everything lined up. And then thisin storages across the Island, unable to beWe're not sure what we're going to do came out of the blue. Its just createdshipped or sold anywhere.yet, have no idea. I just don't know what's tremendous stress. I've been in the business over 30 years,going to happen over the next month, The stress is all too real on Vissersand it's probably the worst thing I've hadtwo months, three months. Just a lot of farm. Victoria Potato Farm grows seed,to experience, I'll say actually, and it'suncertainty and needless uncertainty, processing and fresh potatoes. While thebeen for a whole bunch of reasons, buthe adds. processing sales-maintained status quo,just the economic impact, we're losing fresh and seed sales have become a trickleclose to $2.5 million a week, Donald says.since the border closure. He adds the federal funding support Most of our table stock ends up goingwill only make a tiny dent in the income to the States through a couple of dealersfarms are losing across the Island. WithPlease check out https://spudsmart.com/category/and things came to a grinding halt. We'veproduction costs on the rise heading intopotato-wart/ for the latest updates on this ongoing only done I think five or six loads tothe 2022 growing season, Donald expectsissue.12SPUDSMART.COM Winter 2022"