As part of an effort to distribute cultivars left sitting in Prince Edward Island (PEI) warehouses because of the 10-week ban on exports to the United States (US), truckloads of PEI potatoes have started to arrive at food banks across Canada.
Foodbank organizations hope to distribute more than 300 tractor-trailer loads across the country, according to CBC News.
The PEI Potato Board is involved in coordinating the shipments and helping with the logistics, which will include another large national organization, Food Banks Canada. Alongside can be found two of the country’s largest food bank organizations, with funding from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
The first truckload of potatoes arrived recently at Feed Nova Scotia, one of six bi-weekly shipments planned for the organization.
John VanderZwaag is the operations manager at a spud marketing and distribution company in Toronto. He has been involved with ‘Second Harvest Canada’ for more than six years, helping to facilitate donations of PEI potatoes to the organization, around 450 metric tons per year.
VanderZwaag mentioned for CBC that ‘Second Harvest Canada’ plans to send about ten tractor-trailer loads a week to its locations across the country, from coast to coast, and into northern Canada. He also hopes that the program will be something that continues.
“Our plan right now is to move about ten loads per week, which would put us into about a five-month plan,” VanderZwaag mentioned. “Obviously if there is still additional funding remaining and there are still potatoes in good condition on the Island, my goal would be if we can move more, we will move more. And if we can move 300, then we’re going to go for it.”
On November 21, 2021, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced it was suspending the fresh potato trade to the US following the discovery of potato wart in two Island fields, bringing exports to a sudden halt — usually worth about USD120m per year to the PEI economy.
