New Canada-Mexico deal creates new market for P.E.I. potato growers

Maria Sarrouh explains how a new export deal will see Prince Edward Island potatoes shipped to Mexico, a boost for growers after years of trade restrictions.

CHARLOTTETOWN — A new trade deal with Mexico is creating a potential new market for fresh Canadian potato exports. For growers on Prince Edward Island, it’s another place to sell their crop.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced last week it had reached an agreement with Mexico’s food-safety authority, SENASICA, on arrangements that will allow shipments of Canadian potatoes for either consumption or processing. The agency says it will work with the potato sector in the coming months as next steps are implemented.

“Mexico is a possibility now, and that’s a great feeling,” said Krista Shaw, director of stakeholder relations with the P.E.I. Potato Board, adding there’s excitement about the deal.

Currently, the United States is the biggest buyer of fresh Canadian potatoes, taking 93 per cent of those exports by value in the 2024-25 marketing year, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Recent uncertainty about the future Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA, has “reinforced the importance of diversification as a complementary strategy to support sector resilience,” Jennica Klassen, a spokesperson for Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Heath MacDonald, said in an email to CTV News.

“These efforts are intended to strengthen overall market stability and support the long-term prosperity of North American agriculture,” Klassen wrote.

Shaw said it’s “especially advantageous” when countries can provide tariff-free markets.

“That allows us to have that extra leg up on some of the other countries that may be producing the same potato product that we are,” Shaw said.

While all kinds of fresh Canadian potatoes could be sent south, one variety is the frontrunner on the Island: russets.

“We would be trying to provide the Mexican people with something that they don’t have to offer down there,” Shaw said. “Not in direct competition with the varieties that they grow.”

Canada already ships frozen and other processed potato products to Mexico. In Mexico’s 2024-25 marketing year, frozen potato imports came from the U.S. at 52 per cent, Canada at 34 per cent and Belgium at 14 per cent, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report.

But according to that same report, citing Trade Data Monitor, the U.S. has been Mexico’s sole supplier of fresh potato imports during the last 20 years.

However, Canadian spuds won’t necessarily supplant those from the U.S., said Ray Keenan, CEO of Rollo Bay Holdings, a large agricultural company in eastern P.E.I.

He said U.S. potatoes are typically trucked across the border into northern Mexico.

“We won’t be going anywhere near the north of Mexico. Our product will be going further down,” Keenan said, adding potatoes will likely be shipped down by boat from Maritime ports. “It puts us in a different area of competition.”

He’s optimistic about the upcoming CUSMA review, saying “there’s just too much” that each of the three countries needs from each other. But the new agreement is a “building block” that will require lots of work.

“We will have a significant cost to get there, because freight is expensive and it’s not getting any cheaper these days,” Keenan observed.

He said the opportunity could help balance supply by creating another outlet for fresh potatoes. P.E.I. produces a large crop every year – about 2.18 billion pounds, according to Statistics Canada.

Still, Keenan said growers should not treat the agreement as an immediate signal to expand production or plant more.

“At this point, this market is very premature,” he said. “It’s got a way to go yet, to get developed.”

The industry now has the permission to build a trade pipeline, but planning is in the early stages, with much to be determined about logistics.

Klassen added that an operational work plan was recently signed, and an audit by Mexican officials to review Canada’s certification arrangement is being planned during the 2026 growing season.

For some, the hope is that potatoes planted this year could be part of the first wave.