Last year, farmers in the nation’s capital were hoping for rain. This year, they can’t seem to escape it, as some farmers say the relentless rain is taking a toll on this year’s harvest. At Foster Family Farm in North Gower, what should be a thriving pumpkin patch, is now overrun with weeds and wilted vines. More than half the crop is dead after Ottawa’s wettest July on record, a month beginning with the Canada Day flash floods. “If the crop is under water for 12 or 24 hours or more then it starves for oxygen,” said co-owner Mel Foster. “Best case scenario it stunts it. Worst case, it kills the crop.” Nearly 282 millimetres of rain was recorded at the Ottawa International Airport in July, making it the city’s wettest month on record. By comparison, Ottawa received just 48 millimetres during the same month last year. Broccoli and sweet corn have also been affected, while Foster estimates half of the strawberry crop was lost. The damage forced the farm to cancel its pick-your-own strawberry season. “We sell pumpkins and sweet corn and strawberries to make our income, so it’s devastating to us,” he said. He’s not the only farmer dealing with a summer delivering one storm after another. “It’s actually been a mixed bag depending on where you are,” said Angela Field, director with Ontario Federation of Agriculture. “There are farmers out there that their crops are somewhat washed away or they can’t get their hay off because we can’t get enough days dry without rain in a row.” Foster believes part of the solution lies downstream. Although his farm has underground tile drainage designed to move water away quickly, he says the system can’t work when the surrounding ditches are full. “With Parks Canada controlling the water, they don’t always let the water flow, so it backs up in Stevens Creek, in our creek, and then the ditches, and finally our tile drainage,” he said. “Sometimes it will percolate back, depending on how much rain we get.” CTV News reached out to Parks Canada for a response but did not receive one before deadline. Not every crop at the farm is a total loss, but Foster does not expect an average harvest. “It’s not going to be a bumper year, for sure,” he said. “I don’t think it’s even going to be an average year, to be honest.” After last year’s dry conditions and this year’s record rainfall, Foster says farmers are once again just trying to make the numbers work. “The margin is so tight,” he said. “We need to have good years to break even and then try to make a profit.”
