Thousands in Puerto Rico join lobby for return of P.E.I. potatoes
CBC
Thousands of Puerto Ricans have joined the lobbying efforts to get P.E.I. potatoes back into the U.S. territory.
The weekly shipments ended abruptly when the Canadian Food Inspection Agency banned the export of potatoes from P.E.I. on Nov. 21 in response to American concerns around the discovery of potato wart in two Island fields.
Puerto Ricans are being encouraged to send emails to Jenniffer González Colón, the resident commissioner of Puerto Rico in Washington, as well as to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The social media campaign is called Papas para Puerto Rico, or Potatoes for Puerto Rico, and it focuses on the price of potatoes going up because of the export ban.
"The people of Puerto Rico are heavily reliant on potatoes for their diet," said Kendra Mills, marketing director of the P.E.I. Potato Board in Charlottetown, which helped develop the campaign.
"But also they are very food insecure and the population can use upwards of 50 per cent of food stamps at any one time. So we know that any kind of market disruption is very impactful to the citizens of Puerto Rico."
Mills said 80 to 85 per cent of the potatoes sold in Puerto Rico usually come from Prince Edward Island.
"We're looking to educate them so that they know why the price of a very important staple in their diet is increasing," Mills said.
"We want them to understand, to be able to use their voice to help us in our fight to get the border open. We know this is definitely impacting the citizens of Puerto Rico."
Mills said potato growers on P.E.I. are hearing from their customers in Puerto Rico, many of whom they have been working with for decades.
"The price is going up. The supply is very tight," Mills said.
"We have importers and retailers calling from the United States and Puerto Rico, calling our dealers every other day, looking for an update to the border situation because of the major disruption that's been created down there."
Mills said the social media campaign has been attracting attention, with more than 75, 000 views of the short video, and almost 3,000 emails sent to Congresswoman González and Trudeau.
P.E.I.'s Public Schools Branch is looking for 50 substitute bus drivers, and it'll be recruiting at three job fairs on Saturday, June 8. The job fairs are located at the Atlantic Superstore in Montague, Royalty Crossing in Charlottetown, and the bus parking lot of Three Oaks Senior High in Summerside. All three run from 9 a.m. until noon. Dave Gillis, the director of transportation and risk management for the Public Schools Branch, said the number of substitute drivers they're hiring isn't unusual. "We are always looking for more. Our drivers tend to have an older demographic," he said.