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During the National Potato Council (NPC) Washington Summit, the organization’s Board of Directors passed the following resolution to guide the council’s advocacy efforts:
WHEREAS, the U.S. potato industry generates over $100 billion in positive economic contribution to the U.S. economy each year and supports over 714,000 jobs,
WHEREAS, potato wart is one of the most destructive diseases known to potato production around the world but is not in the United States,
WHEREAS, potato wart would cause hundreds of millions of dollars in negative economic impact to U.S. production if it became established domestically, undermining the aforementioned positive benefits of the U.S. industry and many of the jobs that depend on it,
WHEREAS, Prince Edward Island, Canada (PEI) has been suffering from this destructive disease for decades and its spread across that production area has caused repeated actions by Canadian and U.S. authorities to deal with its progression,
WHEREAS, the U.S. potato industry attempted repeatedly to encourage the Biden Administration to take action to address the threat of disease transmission to the U.S. from PEI exports, but those efforts were unsuccessful as the Biden Administration viewed the crisis as a diplomatic inconvenience,
WHEREAS, the Biden Administration allowed a resumption of exports from PEI to the U.S. without significant modification to the prior export protocol, despite a USDA-APHIS report stating that “it is not a question of if, but when” potato wart will enter the U.S., absent aggressive mitigation,
NOW, THEREFORE, the National Potato Council requests the Trump Administration to reconsider the threat to the U.S. from potato wart transmitted via PEI exports and take immediate steps specifically identified in public comments the U.S. industry submitted both to Canadian and U.S. authorities repeatedly since the most recent crisis began, to mitigate that threat.
