Trying to weather the storm
Nova Scotia farmers still feeling the effects of Hurricane Dorian, hopeful funding will come soon
PORT HOOD — Chris van den Heuvel has been involved in the agriculture industry for his entire life and has seen his fair share of storms, but none as severe as Hurricane Dorian last September.
“Anytime a hurricane comes late in the season, you’re always worried,” said the owner of Fireblade Holsteins near Port Hood. “This one, in particular, was forecasted to be pretty severe — we were six days without power and trying to run the farm on a generator.”
The storm, which touched down in Cape Breton as a post-tropical cyclone, caused damage to corn crops, not only at van den Heuvel’s dairy farm but farms across the province.
“Neighbouring farms had issues with corn down and it made things very difficult to harvest,” said van den Heuvel, a past president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture (NSFA).
“You harvest it in the end, but what was really lacking was the quality of it.”
The storm followed what had already been a difficult few years for the agriculture industry in Nova Scotia.
In spring 2018, frost wiped out many fruit and blueberry harvests, then in 2019 a cold and wet spring caused delays before that year ended with the late-season storm.
The NSFA has reported the estimated damage caused by the storm to be more than $10 million, this after the organization conducted a survey weeks after the storm.
“There was a lot of corn damage and I think the corn in Cape Breton was pretty much wiped out as far as that goes,” said NSFA president Victor Oulton. “A lot of that was uninsurable because of the dates of crop insurance.”
Financial support for the damage has not yet been given to farmers, which has caused issues for some in preparing for this year.
“The biggest problem for a lot of farmers was that their yields were down quite a bit last year, so they've had to dig into their cash flow that they had for this year to pay for inputs to get crops,” said Oulton.
Recently, the Nova Scotia
Department of Agriculture conducted a survey for farmers to assess losses caused by Hurricane Dorian, statistical analysis and program development. Survey results have not been released.
“What they wanted more than anything was more detail about what crops were affected and the cost of the damage,” said Oulton. “It was so widespread, I think pretty much every commodity was affected somewhat from apples to corn and grain crops — I know there was structure damage and some field washouts too.”
Oulton said many farmers had to borrow money to purchase seeds and fertilizer for this year.
“Mostly everyone is frustrated a little bit because it takes so much time to get this stuff done through government,” he said. “Really, farmers needed some cash flow help this spring and to wait until the fall or after, it's almost too late for some of them.”
In van den Heuvel's case, his farm is still getting by, however, he admits there are still challenges.
“It's difficult to put your cash crunch on the operation, margins in agriculture and farming are tight at the best of times,” said van den Heuvel. “When something like this comes along it certainly puts you in a much tighter position, for sure.”
Along with dealing with the damage from Hurricane Dorian, farmers are also facing challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, making things even more stressful.
“We've lost markets and there's labour issues,” said van den Heuvel. “As an industry, we're facing quite a bit of headwind pressure right now, so hopefully we can get through it and come out on the other end.”
As of now, van den Heuvel said all farmers can do is wait and see what support will be available.
“If any, hopefully, it will be there before too long before the season gets much longer for farmers,” he said. “Cash infusion would be much appreciated by producers in the province.”