PEI Potato Destruction
On March 26, 2022 by jmwebPrince Edward Island had to destruct a large number of potatoes this year as there was a Canadian ban in place from exporting PEI spuds to the USA. For seed potatoes, this went further as they could not export their potatoes off PEI. This had a huge impact on our farmers.
Rod Nickel wrote about it for Reuters as it was happening and the editor in charge of North America asked me to cover it for them when the destruction was to take place.
As such, the day finally came when potato destruction/funding was approved for farmers by the PEI Potato Board. Off I went to a farm close to Covehead to cover it.
I spent some time in Covehead prior to making my way to Cornwall to cover another farmer completing their destruction of perfectly eatable food.
There was a wide range of emotions on this particular day. Some farmers did not feel like talking about it but were okay with my photographing it. Others were devasted and didn’t wish to even be photographed. This was an incredibly emotional and sad day for Island farmers.
I did photograph another farmer destroying potatoes earlier in the year on the same day my Washington Post assignment began, however, the destruction was for a video he was doing, therefore I couldn’t utilize the photographs as it was “for show”.
The above imagery was created for Reuters on assignment.
