Challenging Days for PEI’s Dairy Industry

Besides the Bluejays what I’ve worried about the most over the last month is the dairy industry. This obsession by the New York gangster and his trade henchmen that the dairy industry is the ultimate example of Canada ripping off American producers is the height of hypocrisy. How dare Canada use tariffs to protect an important domestic industry. My sincere hope is that the cascade of legal and political entanglements facing Trump, including a supreme court hearing on whether a president alone can impose tariffs, will push the dairy issue into the background. 

Unfortunately that won’t stop a number of Canadian commentators who want to see Donald Trump succeed in gutting the supply management system. Kory Teneycke on the excellent political podcast The Curse of Politics; Jen Gerson and Matt Gurney from the insightful The Line; and others all whine about not being able to buy French butter and cheeses and that it’s the fault of Canadian dairy farmers. 

I do want to point to one exception. Janyce McGregor who covers trade issues for CBC has consistently been fair in her reporting on the dairy industry. She hosted an excellent episode of The House in July on trade tensions with the U.S. that included a segment on the dairy industry ( https://bit.ly/4hBnGXT ). The whole program is worth listening to. 

Dairy farming in developed economies has challenged farmers and governments for a century. From New Zealand, Australia through Europe, and North America the non-stop production of a perishable commodity means farmers have little marketing power. Prices drop quickly once there’s the inevitable over supply. In the late 1950’s when the Canadian government started supporting farmers through what’s called the Agriculture Stabilization Act most of the money went to dairy famers. By the early 1970’s, really at the insistence of then Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, a regulated system was set-up that would limit production to demand and ensure efficient farmers a fair price. And yes the vast majority of this quota went to the provinces with largest populations at the time, Quebec and Ontario. Both have vigorously defended the system to this day. 

The dairy industry has mishandled some issues: the use of palm oil to increase butter fat production, competing with American dairy farmers in export markets for powdered protein, and not always being transparent in how the Canadian Dairy Commission sets milk prices for farmers. 

One real difference in Canada is that unlike in the U.S. there are no government subsidies. Here’s a link to the long list of government programs and subsidies American dairy farmers need to stay in business: https://bit.ly/47SlWpQ . It’s consumers who pay the true cost here, and yes that means dairy prices at the supermarket are higher in Canada. 

There’s obviously a strong urban-rural divide between the city folks who write and comment so negatively about the dairy industry, and the people who actually do the daily work on farms. Yes those with milk quota have substantial net worth, much higher than most Canadians, but like anyone with a successful business only benefit once the business is sold. And most business people don’t HAVE to go to work when there’s a -30 windchill, and snow blocking the doors. 

There are also animal welfare and soil conservation benefits from the income stability from supply management that would never be considered by urban commentators. While the Americans chase low prices by vastly increasing herd sizes, and using artificial hormones to boost production, Canadian herds, certainly in this region, are much smaller. Growth hormones are not allowed in Canada. The need for hay and silage, the availability of manure to put back on the land, ensures healthy soils. These are important but definitely not things talked about in political podcasts. 

And don’t forget Matt, Jen and Kory, it’s small well managed herds in France that allow the production of the premium butter and cheeses you crave. But guess what, you can also get award winning cheeses and butter produced under the very marketing system you condemn. This is from PEI’s COWS Creamery: 

COWS Creamery uses recipes from the Orkney Islands, north of mainland Scotland to produce all of our cheddars in Prince Edward Island. The milk of Holstein cows from small local Prince Edward Island farms is gently heated, but not pasteurized so all beneficial microbes can thrive and give depth of character and flavour. The salt air and iron-rich soil of Prince Edward Island combine to add unique flavours and premium quality to our cheddars. 

 

You should try them. They’re in your local supermarket.

Who Pays if Food Prices Fall

While accusations of price gouging and calls for price caps on the cost of food are generally ridiculed here in Canada, both ideas received a boost following Kamala Harris’s recent convention speech to U.S. Democrats. “To combat high grocery costs, VP Harris to call for first-ever federal ban on corporate price-gouging” said the Democrat’s news release. Republicans of course call the plan “communist”. Former President Trump ridiculed the plan as “SOVIET Style Price Controls.” In Canada Kevin Hopkins of R-Street calls controls “a grand illusion” and points to what happened in Venezuela where he claims price controls lead to wide-spread food shortages. The fallback for “serious” economists and commentators in both countries is that the grocery business operates with such small margins (1 to 2% compared to 7 or 8% in other industries) that surely there can't be any price gouging. Even so the stock market (where profits not margins matter) love the food retailers. The hard truth is that during the supply-chain crises in 2021 and 2022 retail prices rose faster than wholesale costs and the supermarket chains have been banking record profits. All the while food insecurity amongst Canadians, and food bank use, are also at record levels. Politicians in both the United States and Canada know it’s a defining issue that touches every voter. It’s very hard to know in the last few months of a consequential and very close election campaign in the U.S. whether Harris’s promise to ban corporate price gouging will lead to anything. What we do know is that the current Biden government has been much more serious about challenging the market power of large corporations than Canada’s Liberals. The U.S. Justice Department antitrust case brought against Google is one example. And what’s called the Federal Trade Commission led by the very capable Lina Khan is investigating the market power of Apple and Amazon. Here’s Khan’s take on corporate behaviour that demands investigation: “We focus on how companies are behaving. Are they behaving in ways that suggest they can harm their customers, harm their suppliers, harm their workers and get away with it. And that’s how the “too big to care” approach is really what ends up signalling that it has monopoly power.” That just sounded so much like what we’ve been witnessing from Loblaws over the last few years. Unlike Sobeys Loblaws stopped paying the pandemic bonus to its workers as soon as it could. It resisted joining the effort to develop a “grocery code of conduct” until it had no choice. Loblaws is responding to its critics. The Federal government has been trying to attract international discount grocers here to offer some competition but they’ve refused saying they can’t see any way to fight the market power of the established big 5 retailers. Loblaws has taken up this challenge just announcing plans to build 3 ultra-discount grocery stores in Ontario. The No Name stores will help consumers pay less by limiting the number of products being sold, featuring mostly house brands, in a bare bones store layout. That’s a plus for consumers, but at what cost to suppliers like farmers. Vass Bednar is the author of a forthcoming book called The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians. She’s written in the Globe and Mail that private label products like No Name, President’s Choice, Kirkland Signature at Costco, Compliments at Sobeys and so on have huge advantages. They’re developed from all of the customer data that’s collected. They aren’t weighed down by the extra “slotting fees and additional costs” other suppliers have to pay. She writes: “… companies don’t work as hard to steal market share from each other. Instead, they have started to steal market share from independent suppliers through the creep of private-label brands.” The best example I heard of the risk to suppliers came from a CBC report by the excellent journalist Angela MacIvor. Her story was on Loblaw’s Atlantic Superstores combining with Superstores in other provinces as a rebranding exercise. She was persistent in asking how this would lead to cheaper prices for consumers. The answer from senior Vice President Jonathan Carroll says it makes negotiating with suppliers easier.  “Our retail family got a little bit bigger. And it's exciting to see that, you know, if we're buying a palette deal, we can get a better price on that palette deal and give that price back to our consumers.” So cheaper products will not come from cutting into Loblaws’ record profits but demanding cheaper prices from suppliers. And who along that supply chain will take the hit? Who knows. Nice work if you can get it.

Farmers Caught in Crossfire of Climate Change Politics

 I often wonder if axe didn’t rhyme with tax, or a Conservative politician had initially proposed a carbon tax, would we be having a more sensible discussion about climate policies.  Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are definitely on the ropes, swinging wildly hoping to land a punch. Pierre Poilievre has done a superb job capturing the anxiety of Canadians worried about paying their bills.  Recently it’s been Canadian farmers caught in the cross-fire. The Liberals are accused of ignoring the financial pain caused by the carbon tax on farmers, and at the same time charged by environmentalists with abandoning the centre piece of its climate change policies.  Neither of these things are true.  

The latest skirmish is over Bill C-234. It began in February of 2022 as a private members bill proposed by Ontario Conservative MP Ben Lobb.  While 97% of the fuels used by farmers (for tractors, trucks, combines, etc)  are already exempt from the carbon tax, this bill would also exclude the tax on propane and natural gas used for drying grain and heating buildings.  It was supported by all Conservative MPs and also NDP, Green, Bloc, and interestingly  3 Liberal members-  2 from PEI -  Heath MacDonald and Robert Morrissey, and Kody Blois from Nova Scotia.  The 3 Liberals all come from rural ridings. Widespread support like this for an energy policy is unheard of.

The Bill went on to the Senate for final approval and that’s where more political drama played out.  A Quebec based Senator Pierre Dalphond proposed an amendment that would keep the exemption on grain and crop drying, but maintain the carbon tax on heating buildings.  For farm groups this was nothing but obstruction.  Dave Carey the co-chair of the Agriculture Carbon Alliance told the Senate agriculture committee the tax is a “significant financial burden on producers… that there are no viable alternatives” for heating and cooling livestock barns and greenhouses, or for grain drying.

The Senate came close to passing the Bill without any amendments but each time there were procedural delays. The Liberal government says their senators are independent but there’s little doubt they are doing what they can to prevent this Bill as it was originally written from becoming law.  Their argument is that new tax credits have taken the sting out of any carbon tax paid by most farms. But there’s something else at play here: the overheated response to the government’s plan for a 3 year suspension of the carbon tax for homeowners using heating oil.

I’ve written elsewhere that this suspension coupled with financial help to add heat pumps to homes burning furnace oil is sound policy to fight climate change, and the cost of living crisis faced by so many rural Canadians especially in Atlantic Canada.  The Conservatives of course smell blood.  It’s political mantra “Axe the Tax” had claimed its first trophy.  It’s evidence they say that an unpopular government is retreating on its signature climate policy just to bolster its popularity in this region.  The media piled on calling it a carve out, and have now made the Senate vote on farm energy use the test of the government’s resolve, and whether Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault can even continue in his job.

This is all politics writ large and the media is just as much to blame.  The silliest thing I saw was a survey asking Canadians if they think the carbon tax should come off what they’re using to heat their homes as well. You don’t need Captain Obvious to tell you the answer to that. People are struggling. Anything that can cut the cost of living would be welcome. What makes the furnace oil/heat pump policy different is that you’re replacing by far the dirtiest and costliest heating fuel with new technology. It’s a much more proven method of lowering greenhouse gas production than carbon capture which the federal government is also heavily invested in. No one is condemning the Liberals for that.

And there are other warning signs that language and politics are endangering efforts to fight climate change.  There are reports from Germany that in some circles heat pumps are becoming what masks were through the Covid pandemic: a sign of government over-reach challenging individual freedom. Reporting for Politico just before German elections in October Karl Mathiesen wrote  “The heat pump, a banal piece of green home technology, was at the centre of Germany’s major political controversy of the summer — one that has helped propel the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to the brink of a series of electoral breakthroughs…. When they write the book on the downfall of liberal democracy, will it begin with the heat pump?”  Yikes.

Make Bill C-234 law without amendments because farmers have no ability pass on additional costs and Canada needs to promote the food security that greenhouse production can provide.  It’s not another “carve out”. It’s the will of Parliament. It’s the right thing to do.

Politically Crass and Opportunistic, But Still the Right Decision 

I often wonder if Stephen Harper had proposed a “carbon tax” would we be having a less cynical discussion right now. The tax is dead centre in the heart of true Conservative orthodoxy, that market based decisions by individuals rather than government regulations are the best way to change behaviour and efficiently manage an economy. But no. Conservatives everywhere smell blood and will instead promise to “Axe the tax.” Replaced with what? Who knows. 

Yes the Liberals desperately need a win in Atlantic Canada to just possibly prevent an electoral slaughter in the next election. Beyond politics however there’s been a lot missing in the recent discussion. 

Steep inflation, a cost of living crisis, were never considered when the carbon tax was introduced. The market mechanism works when people with disposable incomes are encouraged to make better choices to meet important climate goals. In a reasonably humane country the carbon tax should not overtly punish or harm low income rural Canadians dependent on furnace oil, but that’s what it was doing. 

Despite the fact that the carbon tax suspension applies to all Canadians using furnace oil, there is a disproportionately large number of people in that situation in Atlantic Canada. 

There’s more. Furnace oil is the dirtiest of all fuels used for heating. And some important research by CBC Charlottetown reporter Kerry Campbell has revealed that it’s also the most expensive. Campbell discovered that to produce a unit of heat (a gigajoule) on PEI costs just over $47. The same heat unit in Saskatchewan using natural gas is just over $12. Yes Saskatchewan winters are colder but the carbon tax on this cleaner fuel is also less. 

The other part of the recent announcement (and what makes it more than just a crass political play) is a plan to help middle and low income Canadians using furnace oil to include heat pumps to warm their homes. To me this is what makes it more than just a give away to potential Liberal voters, or an inexcusable break with a plan to fight climate change. You’re replacing the dirtiest and most expensive fuel with a better technology. Period. And despite what’s been argued on some of the smartest political shows like Curse of Politics, and The Line, heat pumps are much more robust than they were just a few years ago, and capable of heating at very low temperatures. Do they completely replace an oil furnace everywhere? Of course not, but the amount of dirty furnace oil that gets burnt will plummet. And that matters. 

What about the cost of these heat pumps? Well the federal government is putting money into other technologies with similar aims to reduce carbon that have nothing to do with Atlantic Canada. Carbon capture is the most obvious. Is that a play to win seats in Alberta? (won’t work I know, and there is that certain pipeline nearing completion.) 

I think the most discouraging thing I’ve read or heard on this was from New Brunswick premier Blaine Higgs. He represents tens of thousands of rural New Brunswickers who will benefit from this, but his response was just the new Conservative mantra “Axe the tax” for everyone. Why? He told Catherine Cullen of CBC’s the House that Canada produces less than 2% of the world’s greenhouse gas production so what’s the point. It simply won’t change anything. If that’s the climate change strategy that Pierre Poilievre brings to the next election, and Canadians buy it, then Higgs is right. What’s the point.

Two Dozen Oddly Shaped Potatoes Should Not Cripple PEI's Potato Industry

 I've written several pieces on the potato wart situation on PEI. I'll include 2 that try to give a good sense of what's going on. 

 

 

In i-politics Nov. 30, 2021

PEI Potato Industry Another Victim of  “America First”


Potato wart, a fungus that poses no risk to humans but makes potatoes unmarketable, was found in 2 fields on PEI in early October.  It’s a serious pest Canadian plant health officials have successfully managed for more than 2 decades.  However on November 21st Canada’s agriculture minister issued an order preventing shipments of all PEI potatoes to the United States, and seed potato shipments to other parts of Canada.  The economic toll has been well documented and is staggering, at least $120 Million in lost sales. The emotional toll on an industry that’s struggled through 3 years of drought and difficult harvests will be enormous too.  The weather issues can be seen as acts of God, but there are human hands all over this latest catastrophe.

Potato wart is a quarantinable pest and potato industries everywhere have every reason to keep it from becoming established. There were harsh but understandable steps taken when it was first discovered 21 years ago on PEI in a field in New Annan belonging to Cavendish Farms the big french fry maker.  PEI could not ship potatoes anywhere. CFIA inspectors quickly took 300,000 soil tests throughout the province and couldn’t find it anywhere else.  It still took almost 2 months before fresh potatoes could be shipped again to the U.S., and 9 months before trade in seed potatoes restarted.  Millions of pounds of surplus potatoes were destroyed.

These pest issues get resolved when plant health officials gain confidence that their counterparts in the other country have a credible plan to prevent any spread. That’s what the Potato Wart Domestic Long Term Management Plan was designed to do.  And it’s been working. Over the last 2 decades 33 fields were identified with the wart and the potatoes quarantined. In fact there has not been one case of potatoes with wart being shipped anywhere. Never a border closure or restrictions on the movement of fresh potatoes.  Until now.

The U.S. National Potato Council isn’t shy about it’s role lobbying to promote the interests of American potato growers. “Standing Up For Potatoes on Capital Hill” is the first thing you see on its website.  In a news release it boasts that it asked USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to suspend importation of PEI potatoes to prevent “the dire threat to the U.S. and Canadian potato industries should potato wart be spread beyond PEI.” This quote comes from new NPC president and Maine potato grower Dominic LaJoie.

It’s not surprising that Lajoie and the NPC would ask for this ban. Lajoie knows better than most that PEI and Maine are long time competitors chasing the same markets in the U.S. North East. Anything that can slow down PEI imports is a direct benefit to Maine growers.  

What’s disappointing is that Secretary Vilsack and U.S. plant health officials would agree to threaten a U.S.D.A. order to shut the border unless Canada acted first. Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau really had no choice but to comply. A U.S.D.A. order would be much more difficult to manage.

The real fallout for Canada is that CFIA Acting Chief David Bailey had to justify Bibeau’s move by questioning the ability of the wart management  plan and his CFIA colleagues to regulate potato wart here. That’s a major setback.


The only “new” information this year was that the 2 discoveries showed higher levels of potato wart. But so what? Whether there was one or a dozen potatoes it’s the fields that are regulated. The 2 farms were already under surveillance from previous cases and the potatoes were destined for the french fry plant. Bottom line: the plan continues to work. It protects potato growers inside and outside of PEI from potato wart.

What’s harder to know are the backroom dealings that convinced Secretary Vilsack to ignore this. Was it to keep Maine Senator Susan Collins happy? She’s a veteran of potato disputes with PEI and a moderate Republican Joe Biden might need in a deadlocked Senate.  Collins will be pleased that the closure will enrich Maine potato growers given that drought in major potato growing areas in the Central and Northwest states has led to a shortage in the U.S. Of course the exact opposite will happen in Canada now with surplus potatoes driving down prices. Not a bad 2 weeks work for the National Potato Council.

Once again CFIA is doing large scale soil sampling around the province looking for wart, but torrential rain is making that difficult. Without a quick resolution (highly unlikely) millions of pounds of perfectly good potatoes will eventually have to be destroyed just as food prices are spiking everywhere. The lowly potato is easily forgotten in most Canadian kitchens but it’s the lifeblood of the PEI economy.  Trade protectionism and politics are making a very rare and well managed plant health risk an economic disaster for Canada’s smallest province.

In the Island Farmer Jan. 13, 2022

A Tough Start to the New Year for PEI’s Potato Industry

The British have a phrase that captures Canada’s position trying to fight an unnecessary, unfair and devastating export ban of PEI fresh potatoes into the U.S.: “on the back foot”.  The definition: in a position of disadvantage, retreat, or defeat.

It’s been disheartening listening to Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) officials in legislative committee hearings in Charlottetown and Ottawa say over and over that it will be the Americans who will decide when there’s been enough evidence that wart is no threat to the U.S. potato industry. CFIA’s David Bailey said "It's very difficult to give a specific sort of critical path of timelines. We do not control their [U.S.] decision-making and we do not control when they have comfort, from a risk tolerance perspective.”

And for those who say that it’s Canada’s Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau who can end the border closure consider this. The day after she announced PEI could no longer export to the U.S.,  American  plant health officials (APHIS) ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection to refuse entry to all potatoes from PEI.  I want to see PEI’s 4 MP’s and Minister Bibeau under the whip too but this export ban won’t end until Washington officials say so.

I know many in the U.S. industry read Canadian reporting on this issue and have taken offence to what I and others have written,  that this isn’t a plant health issue but a protectionist trade war.  Of course potato industries everywhere have good reason to keep potato wart from being established, and that’s what the wart management plan has done successfully for 2 decades.  There’s simply no evidence that it hasn’t been effective.

I think U.S. officials have shown bad faith for 2 reasons:

1. In 2020 wart was found unexpectedly in 2 seed potato lots during a routine certification process. Seed potatoes are the biggest risk to move potato wart to some other jurisdiction. In 2020 the Americans allowed CFIA to follow the protocols in the management plan and there was no restriction on fresh potato movement.

In 2021 wart was found in 2 fields on 2 farms. Both farms had had potato wart before. Both farms were being tightly supervised by CFIA, and the potatoes destined for the french fry plant.  The discovery itself was not wholly unexpected and posed absolutely no risk to potato growers inside or outside PEI. And we know what happened.

The biggest difference I see is that the drought in 2020 had cut into PEI’s production and quality.  This year perfect weather led to the best harvest in history. Currency exchange rates do give PEI a competitive advantage in the U.S. market and with this wart discovery Maine and other U.S. growers saw a chance to keep PEI out. A responsive U.S. Department of Agriculture got the job done.


2. The other sign of bad faith is preventing PEI fresh potatoes from being shipped to Puerto Rico, a U.S. protectorate with no commercial potato production. We have to remember that Idaho has a quarantinable pest called potato cyst nematode.  It ships fresh potatoes  to Japan where PCN is prohibited following the exact same protocols used by PEI. Not good enough say the Americans. Not this year anyway.

Canada learned through the Trump years that playing nice when dealing with arbitrary trade restrictions just doesn’t cut it. I hope potatoes get as much attention as electric cars as Canada makes plans to fight U.S. protectionism with all the political and legal tools at its disposal. Waiting for the results of tens of thousands of soil tests going into 2023 would be throwing PEI to the wolves.

And there’s work to be done on PEI as well. The two fields with wart this year belong to Irving owned companies including Cavendish Farms. The company insists it’s following all of the CFIA rules and protocols and there’s nothing to indicate that’s not true. However I believe Cavendish officials must at least acknowledge some of the choices made over the last 20 years and work with the industry now to reduce the risk of wart being discovered again:

1. In 2000 the initial field with wart belonged to Cavendish Farms. The agriculture minister of the day Mitch Murphy insisted that the field would be planted in trees. That never happened.  Instead, and with the understanding of others in the potato industry and the CFIA, Cavendish negotiated a protocol that would allow possible replanting with potatoes after 5 years. That will change. The 33 fields found with wart over the last 21 years, including those owned by other growers, are almost certain to be planted in trees in the months ahead.

2. Cavendish Farms chose to plant riskier contact fields with Russet Burbank, the best fry potato but very susceptible to potato wart, even though the CFIA continues to suggest that resistant varieties (Goldrush, Prospect) can severely limit,  and after several decades, eventually eradicate wart.

And finally the scale of the Irving’s farming operations matters here. CFIA insists there are no new testing requirements from the U.S. now. That means it’s the multiple large farms that share equipment the Irvings own and operate that’s led to extensive levels of tracing and soil testing that the CFIA says could go on until 2023.

Let the CFIA do what it does best on the technical and scientific issues but back it up with some trade and negotiating hardball. Take ads out to inform U.S. consumers that they’re paying too much for potatoes and why. Test U.S. new potatoes in the months ahead for banned pests and diseases. Find some leverage that can threaten American producers too. It’s not nice, but unnecessary protectionist trade wars never are.

 Someone sent me a link to a very useful blog with important and helpful information on food budgeting. Thankyou Debbie Gant:

https://www.deliveryrank.com/blog/how-to-eat-healthy-on-a-budget

Water is More than a Liquid on PEI

 I didn't make a lot of friends with this one:

The Water Wheel Keeps Spinning

It was hard to think that the moratorium on high-capacity wells for farmers could get any more confusing (there are other words), but it has. In the interest of fairness a legislative committee has recommended that no rural business be allowed a new well until research has been completed to better understand the groundwater resource and how to manage it properly.  Other than pushing new businesses to towns and cities with central water systems (from high-capacity wells) this is exactly where we were two years ago when a research project was first proposed.

Politicians have so much trouble with this because the moratorium has become a litmus test for the environmental credibility of political parties. Get it wrong and the stigma of caring more about Americans eating french fries than protecting precious water resources will stick for several elections.  But now there’s a new challenge: get it wrong and risk the viability of farms throughout the province because of continuous summer droughts from climate change.

The urgency for farmers is pretty obvious, but we have to understand that for many others the moratorium is a bargaining chip, the one bit of control for those opposed to potato production. People concerned with the heavy use of pesticides, nitrate risk to streams and groundwater, soil erosion, fish kills and so on. They worry that take the moratorium off the table, and the industry will be free to do whatever it wants, including putting the province’s water resources at risk. It represents a total breakdown of trust.

There were times during the wild-west growth in potato production during the 1990’s that I shared these concerns, but several things have happened since that give me confidence that potato production is more responsible and sustainable now, and getting more so each year.

The pesticides being used are safer (not safe) and have evolved from the legacy WW2 nerve agents popular back then. The specialized sprayers many farmers use now are much more precise, and research at UPEI and elsewhere on “precision agriculture” will do even more to make sure the minimum amount of pesticide and fertilizer is used and only go where it’s needed.

There’s an even bigger hammer wielded on potato growers producing for the french fry markets.  Fast food giants like McDonalds are starting to demand proof that farming practices are minimizing harm to the environment, and there’s no question that Cavendish Farms insists that its growers must not be the cause of fish kills. It just does not want the bad publicity.

Then there’s the growing relationship between farmers and local watershed groups, the living lab research projects on commercial farms looking at new rotation mixes and use of cover crops in the fall. All are designed to lessen the risk of damaging the natural resources we all depend on.

It’s still “show me” time for so many people, but driving good and bad farmers out of business IF water could be used safely and responsibly is simply unreasonable.

Here’s the thing. The research is needed even if the moratorium never ends. There are 308 high-capacity wells already in use in the province, 36 on farms established before the moratorium, and hundreds more used by cities, towns, food processors, golf courses and so on.  We need ways to confidently judge when all these current users are taking too much water and have to stop.  This research will help us get that.

There are 2 things that matter in all of this for me. We can’t let irrigation water and fertilizer push production on deteriorating soils.  I think establishing a minimum soil organic matter level for a permit is one way to avoid this, but this has to be implemented fairly. Many will want a fixed number (3% and higher say) but what about farmers who have genuinely started the long road back to improving soils, but haven’t hit that number yet? Improved productivity would help to financially support the soil building we want to encourage.  Can we get legal commitments on proper crop rotations as part of the irrigation permitting? Hey, maybe just enforce the 3 year rotation regulations, and soil organic matter testing and benchmarks the Roundtable proposed 25 years ago.

The other issue is preventing saltwater intrusion into aquifers. This will require intelligent placing of wells away from the coast.

The controversy over increased irrigation is dragging along a lot of baggage, and we have to be willing to let some it go. Yes it began 19 years ago with Robert Irving wanting to ensure the supply of potatoes to compete in a ruthless commodity french fry market that pits PEI against farmers and processors in western North  America with virtually no environmental regulations, land ownership restrictions, and a long history of irrigation use .  But now many other farmers, including certified organic producers, are saying irrigation is necessary to maintain food production. Islanders need to know if it can be done sustainably and regulated properly.  Research will tell us that. Let’s use some common sense, please.