Maritime farmers facing smaller yields, heavy losses due to drought

A head of wheat is silhouetted by the sun in a wheat crop near Cremona, Alta., Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

This year’s harvest is revealing a fuller picture of losses and the damage drought conditions have caused in the Maritimes.

At Christian Michaud’s farm in Bouctouche, N.B., 32 acres of corn fields are riddled with unsellable ears of corn.

As Michaud breaks off several ears to peel back the husks and examine his crop, much of the cob is full of holes. The corn that’s sellable is often smaller than usual.

“We lost about 40 per cent and that’s being conservative over the whole season,” Michaud said.

It’s been a hot dry summer with little rain in the Maritimes, and crops are suffering because of it. But last weekend, farmers in his area received a gift: some rain fell. The timing — right before harvest — couldn’t have been better.

“Water can basically provide miracles,” he said, pleasantly surprised, as he was able to salvage some corn that thought was a loss.

Ian Hubbard, meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), said it’s been a very dry summer that’s worsened between June and August.

“Looking over that three-month period, a lot of areas saw near 50 per cent of their normal precipitation. Some areas even saw less than that,” Hubbard said.

The short-term and long-range forecasts aren’t favourable, either.

“Other than maybe a scattered shower over the next few days, we’re really not looking at a really good chance of showers or accumulating precipitation until maybe Thursday of next week,” he said, noting ECCC’s long-range models are also projecting drier conditions through the end of September, and even going through most of October.

The lack of moisture in the soil is a problem that farmers across the Maritimes are facing.

Kent Coates grows certified organic mixed vegetables, such as carrots, potatoes, lettuce and tomatoes at his Nature’s Route Farm in Point de Bute, N.B.

“We’ve had less than 30 millimeters of rain for our whole season, where we would normally get 25 a week,” he said.

Coates said he’s lucky he had the foresight to invest in an irrigation system to minimize the stress of a season like this, but it’s also added to his costs. He said setting it up and moving the system takes up half his day, every day.

“If I hadn’t had that irrigation, we wouldn’t have any vegetables this year. I probably couldn’t sell any of my field crops,” he said.

Even with about 14 mm of water on his crops each week, potatoes in one field are twice as small, and weigh a third of what they’d usually weigh.

His farm’s operational costs are up about five per cent.

“Five per cent doesn’t sound like a lot. But if we’re working at a four per cent margin, five per cent operational cost is significant,” he said, adding it means he’ll break even, but will be unable to save for another year that’s worse than this one.

Calculating food costs

Stuart Smyth, a professor at the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Saskatchewan, noted it’s less likely for food prices to climb at the large grocery chains, due to the conditions in the Maritimes. However, he thinks it could be a different story at farmer’s markets.

“I think it’s quite likely that consumers will see higher prices for farm produce in farmers’ markets,” he said, pointing out that even farmers with irrigation systems were struggling if they didn’t have automation and had to physically move the irrigation systems daily.

Coates did have to increase the price of his potatoes this year by close to 15 per cent. He said that increase aligns them with the costs of other organic vegetables in the grocery store.

“We have had to have a modest increase in our potato price this year,” he said. “Carrots we’re hoping to stay the same.”