Disinfection services for potato growers and shippers will go on in Prince Edward Island, in spite of a controversial cut in funding from the provincial government.
The P.E.I. Potato Board will step in to take over management of the disinfection program, Premier Wade MacLauchlan said.
“They’re quite willing to take the initiative and to pick up the program and to have it done through the industry, which in fact is how it’s done in all of the other provinces,” MacLauchlan said last week.
P.E.I. potato growers were blindsided by the government’s decision to cancel the disinfection program—designed to keep bacterial ring rot at bay—due to an apparent stalemate with the P.E.I. Potato Board.
The board had declined to pay the lead share of the 60/40 percent funding arrangement, something executive director Greg Donald described as an “ultimatum.”
The service costs about $500,000 a year, with government picking up $375,000 of the tab and the $10 a truck spray fees raising the other $125,000.
The issue sparked heated debate in the P.E.I. legislature last month, with members of MacLauchlan’s own Liberal caucus publicly raising concern over negative effects—notably to potato exports—on the province’s lucrative potato industry as a result of the government not running the program.
For the last 30 years, the province has provided the lion’s share of funding for potato disinfection services.
MacLauchlan said the potato board will now take the lead in running the program.
“We were asking the potato industry and the potato board and the community to pick up a larger share of the costs of some of those programs, and that’s in fact how that has unfolded and will continue into the future,” he said. “In the process, we learned it really is the seed potato that is most in need of protection through the disinfection program. So, in effect, the total amount that is spent on disinfection will be substantially reduced because of the process of working together.”
Board executive director Greg Donald declined comment for this story, as final details are still being worked out among the board and industry partners.
Source: The Guardian (Charlottetown, P.E.I.)