Robert Green surveyed his rust-colored field last Thursday afternoon and pointed to a tractor just coming into view over a hilltop.
The machine is planting peas, he explained, a first for his business, Greenfield Farms in Bedeque, Prince Edward Island. A few fields over, Green has fava beans planted, another first.
He’s hoping the peas and beans, when rotated with his traditional potato crop, will help improve his overall yields and diversify his income options. Green is shaking up his planting mainly because of the loss of the McCain Foods french fry plant in Albany, P.E.I., which closed in 2014. He’s been supplying potatoes to McCain Foods since 1989 but that relationship will, in all likelihood, come to a close after this season and he needs to start planning for that outcome.
“If I can find something other than potatoes to grow and be profitable doing it…potatoes are going to get smaller on this farm,” he said.
Like Green, potato farmers across P.E.I. are busy planting this year’s crop, but those who used to sell to McCain have the added worry of wondering where next year’s crop will be heading.
When McCain Foods closed its only processing facility on P.E.I., it committed to keep buying potatoes from its contracted growers in the province for another two seasons. Growers are responsible for trucking their product to processing facilities, but McCain subsidized the transportation of raw P.E.I. product to processing facilities in Florenceville and Grand Falls, New Brunswick, for those two years.
The move was intended to help cushion the blow to growers who had contracts to sell to the Albany plant and who were caught by surprise when it closed suddenly. McCain is not making any commitment to continue buying P.E.I. potatoes in 2017 and beyond.
“All of our growers understand that going forward, P.E.I. needs to be competitive with locally grown potatoes for us to continue to buy from there,” a company spokesperson told TC Media.
“Unless things change in our favor, I’m not really in a position to be hauling to McCain Foods in New Brunswick. It’s not cost-effective to do it,” Green said.
There are about 20 producers on the Island who have contracts with McCain for the 2016 season.
Greg Donald, general manager of the P.E.I. Potato Board, said that despite there being no official commitment from McCain, the board is hopeful the company will continue to deal with P.E.I. growers.
“They’ve been great customers over the years; I can't say enough about that,” said Donald.
McCain could continue to buy P.E.I. potatoes, but it’s not looking likely that Green will be selling his crop to them beyond this year. He’s hopeful his efforts to find a supplementary cash crop will bear fruit, and he’s recently signed a contract with Cavendish Farms, so he still has a market for the potatoes he’s going to continue to grow.
Still, though, he’s sad to see his relationship with McCain come to an end.
“It’s like losing an old friend,” he said.
Source: The (Charlottetown) Guardian