Potato Farms a Hotbed for Cancer?

Prince Edward Island is known nationwide for beautiful red sand beaches, a friendly people, lighthouses dotting its rugged Atlantic coastline, and for its staggeringly vast potato production. But the tiny island may soon come to be associated with another, far less benign feature: some of the highest rates of cancer and asthma in the country.

Despite repeated assertions from government officials that the statistics don't provide any proof, many Prince Edward Island residents believe that heavy pesticide use on the island's potato farms is causing high rates of cancer and other diseases. With about 7,000 fields spanning 110,000 acres, the small island produces more than a billion kilograms of potatoes every year, making PEI one of the most intensely-farmed areas in Canada.

The tiny island of PEI, which is small enough to fit into Saskatchewan 115 times, supplies nearly 30 percent of Canada's potato market. But there is a heavy price to pay for the tremendous agricultural production. According to PEI Green Party leader Sharon Labchuk, potatoes grown on that magnitude require "enormous amounts" of fungicidal chemicals to ward off blight, a disease that can devastate potato crops. Labchuk says the crops are sprayed about 20 times per year—every four days in blight season—and the three main fungicidals used on the potatoes have been classed as carcinogens by the U.S. government.

Since the 1980s, potato production in PEI has doubled, but pesticide use has soared by 700 percent in the same period.

"Both Liberals and Conservatives have sunk a ton of taxpayers' money into subsidizing the industry, and what we have now is a virtual potato monoculture," says Labchuk. "You grow a monoculture in this industrial system and you're tied to the chemicals."

Labchuk points out that because PEI is densely populated—the most densely-populated province in Canada, in far—the potato fields are interspersed among the homes, hospitals, daycares and schools, which means that people are constantly within range of the sprays.

But experts disagree on whether this chemical exposure has resulted in unusually high cancer rates on the island.

Linda Van Til, Epidemiologist for the PEI Department of Health, says that while PEI cancer rates have spiked here and there, the overall trend tends to be on a par with the rest of Canada. Van Til says one of the few cancers that has been demonstrated to fluctuate with pesticide use is non-Hodgekins lymphoma, but tracking by the Health Department has shown no increase in the prevalence of that cancer.

"It certainly seems that the cancers we do see, the higher trends are related to much more mundane things such as smoking and diet, which is regrettably low in fruits and vegetables," says Van Til.

But Dr. Ron Matsusaki, emergency room physician at Western Hospital in Alberton, says that in all the years he's worked as a doctor both in Canada and the U.S., he hasn't seen cancer rates that come even remotely close to what he's seeing in the West Prince area of PEI. He says he has no doubt that these cancers are caused by "an insane amount" of chemical pesticides. Every second household in Mimnegash, a fishing village in West Prince surrounded by potato fields, has been afflicted with cancer, according to Matsusaki.

"West Prince is a laboratory for rare and aggressive cancers. It's not uncommon to find people who have up to ten family members with cancer, that's how crazy it is here."

West Prince resident Noralee Harper believes her five year-old-son contracted B cell lymphoma when her family lived next to a potato field. She's convinced the chemicals seeped into the well the family used, adding that there are no government regulations in place for testing pesticide levels in the island's drinking water. Though her son is in remission now, she says she's lucky because she knows families who have lost more than one child to cancer.

"With each month that goes by, we hear of somebody new we that know personally who's been diagnosed with cancer. It's like the common cold, like a natural part of life. Living here, we worry non-stop, it's a daily concern."

The only doctor to speak out about the link between pesticides and high cancer rates on the island, Matsusaki says that although he has received a letter of acknowledgement from the Canadian Medical Association, many of his colleagues in the medical profession as well as the Mayor of Mimnegash are "in denial" about the severity of the situation. He believes non-Hodgekins lymphoma is the most common cancer in West Prince, followed a close second by renal cell cancer, a particularly aggressive cancer that doesn't present symptoms until it's in the latter stages.

PEI Health Minister Chester Gillan said in January that he's willing to look at research backing Matsusaki's claims, and if he receives scientific proof that pesticides are poisoning PEI residents he'll act swiftly to ban the offending chemicals.

But Labchuk with the Green party says she has provided Gillan and other government officials with ample scientific evidence on the issue over the years. She says Gillan "knows very well we're using chemicals here that are known to cause cancer."

In a 1999 Environment Canada study, the fungicide chlorothalonil, also called Bravo, was present in every air sample taken on the island—even in the control area which was at the end of a wharf away from any fields. The study also found that concentrations of the fungicide were just as high or higher on days when no spraying occurred as on days when it did. The US Environmental Protection Agency classes chlorothalonil as a carcinogen that can cause a variety of ill effects including skin and eye irritation, reproductive disorders and kidney damage.

Labchuk says the PEI potato industry is controlled by New Brunswick's Irving family and McCain Foods. Calling PEI's Chief Medical Officer Lamont Sweet "just a patsy for the industry and for government," Labchuk believes that there has to be an impact on the economy to get the government's attention, so she and her group Earth Action have been handing out leaflets to tourists on the premise that "tourists aren't going to come to a place that's polluted and poisoned." Tourism in PEI is equal in economic clout to the potato industry.

In the early 1990s, a study conducted by a Danish pharmaceutical company found that PEI had the highest hospitalization rates for asthma anywhere in the world. Although Van Til says asthma hospitalization rates have dropped in the last five years, Matsusaki believes PEI has the highest incidence of asthma and asthma deaths in Canada.

Farmer Danny Hendricken, who spends $150,000 to $170,000 per year on fungicides for his 850-acre potato farm, believes the chemicals he uses on his land not only have a detrimental effect on the people and wildlife but on the soil as well. He says he's "disappointed" that the government hasn't pressured the corporations who own the rights to the fungicides to develop a safer way.

"Some tough decisions have got to be made, but unfortunately….for them to have the political intestinal fortitude to stand up to the corporate sector who's really benefiting financially from this takes a lot of political will."

And while Hendricken hopes the government will initiate improvements to the industry, he's not holding his breath. For now, pesticides are the only way for farmers to keep their heads above water.

Hendricken says net farm income, which acts as a barometer indicating the health of the industry, has greatly diminished in recent years. As a result, farm debt is spiraling out of control. He says that because farmers are only making mere "cents a pound" for potatoes, they have to produce millions of pounds just to get by.

"It's a lot of pressure, there's a great deal of stress. It's like a treadmill that keeps running faster and faster. The industry here is almost at its limitation where it can't run any faster, and if it makes one slip, it's gone."