News on The Potato Supply Chain from Canada

Health Canada and Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) have completed the food, feed, and environmental safety assessments of the J.R. Simplot Company’s second generation of Innate® potatoes. The authorizations enable the potatoes to be imported, planted, and sold in Canada.

Canadian Potato Processing company Cavendish Farms is investing in major potato storage upgrades at its New Annan French Fry plant, Prince Edward Island.

After a month of good growing conditions and positive reports amid sporadic news on disease potential, word from one of Ontario’s potato-growing regions is that roughly 1,000 acres of potatoes have been lost due to flooding.

A couple of seed potato companies from Quebec, together with the Centre de Recherche Les Buissons (CRLB) have started an initiative to export high quality seed potatoes to Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Strang family of potato farmers in New Brunswick, Canada are getting into the liquor business by making vodka from potatoes. The first batch of Blue Roof vodka will be available in the farm’s storefront this week and in NB liquor stores sometime in the next week.

Simplot Plant Sciences will not commercially launch its Innate GMO potatoes in Canada this year, despite regulatory approval and interest among potato farmers to grow these new potatoes

New packaging equipment at a Prince Edward Island Potato Packer, purchased with a loan from ACOA (the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency), is expected to help the company reach new customers.

The potato disease Dickeya can be detected by laboratory testing — but is there enough of it present to justify the higher costs? That is the question facing Canadian Seed Potato Growers exporting to the United States who are increasingly asked for the test.

Soybean producers are gearing up to plant soybeans that are tolerant to both glyphosate and dicamba herbicides. Potato growers should be aware that both glyphosate and dicamba drift can cause irreparable damage in neighbouring potato crops

East Point Potato 2009 Inc. is scaling up its operations in rural Prince Edward Island, Canada with the help of a CAD 500,000 federal loan.

Potato Farmers on Prince Edward Island, Canada are gearing up for another planting season.

Following a highly successful launch in 2016, Canadian produce company EarthFresh is bringing its lower glycemic response (GR)* Carisma potato back to Ontario grocery retailers for an extended season.

Red-skinned potatoes are sure to be on the minds and menus of many after remarkable results shown by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s selections this year.

With clean seed potatoes recognized as the best defense against this new blackleg-causing pathogen, the demand for Dickeya testing is growing fast.

The Canadian Horticultural Council has received over $274,000 in Growing Forward 2 funding to help expand markets for Canadian potatoes.

Since Monsanto took their genetically modified Newleaf /Naturemark potatoes of the market in 2001, no GM potatoes have been grown commercially in Canada. But Simplot's Innate potatoes are going to change that in 2017.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) annually releases 10-15 potato selections. To show these to the Canadian industry, AAFC will hold a Potato Release Open House on February 15, 2017, simultaneously in Fredericton, NB; Guelph, ON; and Lethbridge, AB.

El rendimiento del cultivo de la papa en los países andinos es bajo y una causa es la degeneración de la semilla. Para solucionar el problema se crearon los sistemas formales de certificación de semillas. Pero su implementación no ha entregado los resultados esperados. Se requieren por tanto cambios en los actuales sistemas de semilla.