12/12/07 Canadian pressure to resume Alberta seed spud shipments

Washington Ag December 12, 2007 Potato seed growers in Alberta are telling their US customers that the border should be open to their product even with the October discovery there of the golden potato cyst nematode. Idaho State Department of Agriculture's Mike Cooper is one of those being pressured to re-open the border. He says the Canadians haven't even come close to taking the kinds of actions that Idaho and the US instituted when potato cyst nematode was discovered in Idaho. COOPER "Essentially they haven't gotten out of the starting gate as to looking for the scope of their problem. When we had the situation in Idaho Canada not only quarantined potatoes but nursery stock as well and seed potatoes and table stock potatoes. It was six months and 35 thousand samples later before they would come back to the table and talk to us about allowing some of Idaho potatoes back into Canada." 23 Cooper says there are questions about which Alberta fields were surveyed, where the nematode originated and he thinks its premature to be talking about reopening the border given the risk to U.S. producers. But Idaho is not as dependent upon seed potatoes from Alberta as Washington is. Growers in Washington state rely upon Alberta for about 30 percent of their seed. I'm Bob Hoff.