Some Island farmers are losing their entire potato crop to rot in storage, but the provincial agriculture minister says he is not considering it a disaster yet.

Holland Cahill has had to dump almost all his potatoes back onto his field. (CBC)

Grower Holland Cahill of Kildare in western P.E.I. has dumped all his potatoes — 900 tonnes. He was able to salvage a few to give away as cattle feed. The rest he has spread on his fields as fertilizer.

"The potatoes compress, the water hits the floor, any good potatoes are now being flooded with black water, and the damage is virtually impossible [to control] until you can get that area out of there," Cahill told CBC News Thursday.

"The problem we faced was that area was at the back of our major storage."

Following a very wet October, farmers across the Island are facing trouble with storage.

Agriculture Minister George Webster told CBC News Thursday he does not consider the storage problems a major disaster, and there are no plans for compensation from the government.

Webster noted he urged farmers back in the spring to buy crop insurance, and many of them did. About 68 per cent of last fall's crop is insured.

Cahill said it was lucky he bought crop insurance, with which he will be able to recover a portion of his losses. Without it, this would have put him out of business.

"It's very disheartening. There's no way you can describe how a farmer feels after spending the entire growing season doing what they can," he said.

Peter Griffin is also facing storage problems. He has been spreading peat moss on his potatoes to try to absorb the moisture from the rotten potatoes and keep the gooey mess from spreading.

Peter Griffin is trying to delay the rot with peat moss. (CBC)

"[We're] trying to ship them out because if this pile was here for another three weeks, I don't think there'd be anything left of it," said Griffin.

"If we can separate the bad from the good in a timely fashion, and deal with it in a timely way, I think we can salvage some of the good ones yet."

Griffin has also had to dump about 900 tonnes of potatoes. He estimates he will lose about 40 per cent of his crop in storage this year. In a normal year, it's about five per cent.

"It's very hard to store potatoes, especially when you put potatoes in when they have water damage," he said.

"How can you expect to get something better out than what you put in?"

For farmers who have some of their crop remaining to sell, there remains the hope that the troubles could lead to a shortage of potatoes, which will in turn drive up the price.