New bill would allow P.E.I. to limit what crops can be grown in potato wart index fields

P.E.I.'s minister of agriculture has tabled legislation that would give the provincial government a lead role in trying to prevent the spread of potato wart in the province.

If passed, An Act to Amend the Plant Health Act would give the minister Darlene Compton the authority to prohibit or restrict the planting of certain crops within an area of a field where a regulated disease has been detected, for up to 20 years.

On Wednesday Compton said her department plans to prohibit the planting of potatoes, tomatoes or any kind of root crop in specific areas in fields where potato wart has been detected — known as index fields.

Currently, under the potato wart management plan administered by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, wart-resistant varieties of potatoes can be planted in those fields five years after the detection of potato wart.

Compton said that would still be allowed except in the specific area of the field delineated under the legislation where potato wart was detected.

In the restricted area, Compton said producers could grow "grains, oilseeds, corn, soybeans. Any other crop that you're not actually bringing soil up out of the earth and having that adhere to the crop."

There have been calls for those fields to be taken out of production completely. 

Compton said her department had considered allowing only trees to be planted in those areas. But she said this new approach, which she said is used in Europe, will help destroy potato wart spores.

"Plant the field with something else, and when the soil is turned over, about 85 per cent of the potato wart spores are exposed to air and germinate," Compton said. 

"But if they don't have a host to adhere to, they die within a very short time."

Compton said the new plan should allow P.E.I. to control the spread of potato wart, "and possibly eradicate, is the goal."

One year ago, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency suspended the export of fresh P.E.I. potatoes to the United States and its territory of Puerto Rico following the discovery of potato wart in two Island fields.

Potato wart is a fungus that disfigures potatoes so that they are unmarketable, and reduces yields, but poses no health risk to humans. 

That decision brought to a sudden halt exports that are usually worth about $120 million per year to the P.E.I. economy. An investigation by CFIA has been ongoing since then.