Everywhere you look in PEI, there's potato fields.

Just as connoisseurs of fine wine say they can taste the soil in which the grapes are grown, the Prince Edward Island potato has a flavour that is unique because of the Island's rich red soil. If you could visualize the perfect place for growing potatoes, it would be Prince Edward Island. The Island's rich sandy soil, clean air and water, and its long cold winters that naturally cleanse the soil, provide the perfect environment for growing high quality potatoes.

P.E.I. farmers have been producing potatoes for the world since 1790. Today, potatoes are P.E.I.'s primary cash crop. Last season, almost 620 Island farmers harvested approximately 108,000 acres of potatoes with an average yield of 165 hundredweight per acre. The total production for the 2001 crop was approximately 17,820,000 hundredweight (1 hundredweight (cwt.) = 100lbs.). That works out to 12,866 lbs. per Prince Edward Islander or 57 lbs per Canadian. Prince Edward Island enjoys the reputation as Canada's leading potato province, responsible for almost one-third of Canadian production.

In addition to the important Canadian market, seed and table potatoes are shipped to over 20 countries annually. Some recent customers are located in countries as diverse as Venezuela, Italy, Ukraine, Portugal, and Thailand. While markets vary from year to year, over the past few years about 50% of table potatoes have been sold in Canada, 20% have been marketed in the United States, and approximately 30% are sold to other countries.