The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Tomato plants turfed
Labour shortage linked to pandemic means 26,000 to be destroyed
Andy Vermeulen prefers the type of picking that comes with harvest season to the difficult planting decisions he's making this spring.
The Annapolis Valley farmer is picking and choosing between crops as a labour shortage linked to the COVID-19 pandemic forces him to scale back on some aspects of what his Canningbased operation would typically put in the ground at this time of year.
This year's tomato crop will be particularly hard done by at Vermeulen Farms Limited.
Vermeulen had already started planting prior to the border closures that would result in delays in the arrival of his temporary foreign workers from Mexico and Guatemala.
The potential impact of the COVID-19 outbreak wasn't clear at the time. He hoped operations would still be somewhat normal on the farm.
He pushed forward with the seeding of tomatoes, fully expecting that seasonal workers would arrive in time to prep the fields and get the plants in the ground.
On Tuesday, Vermeulen stood in a large greenhouse-style structure full of rows of leafy tomato plants in transportable plastic trays.
“It's a shame that these tomatoes are going to get destroyed,” he said.
He estimates that about 26,000 plants will be written off. He said he didn't have the workers required to adequately prep the fields with the required infrastructure in time for the tomato plants to be transferred according to schedule.
“They are at a particular stage,” he said.
“You lose crop if you don't get there in time.”
Vermeulen planned his planting season around the thought that he'd have the usual 50 to 60 employees to work with.
It frustrates him to think that what he describes as “knee-jerk reactions” from governments in the first few weeks of the COVID-19 crisis stand to have long-term impacts on his business.
He said he was supposed to welcome 35 skilled offshore workers to the farm on April 8, but the first group of eight arrived about a week ago. A second group, 16 workers from Guatemala, has since arrived.
Vermeulen was pleasantly surprised to see a number of Nova Scotians respond to a call for help that he put out on Facebook in response to the shortage of workers during planting season.
“We've been very fortunate in that we've had some Canadians come out and help us with planting strawberries,” he said.
He admits that there is a level of discomfort with welcoming a new crew to the farm amid the growing public health advisories relating to the pandemic.
“These people are coming to the farm and they're all strangers to you.”
He's known many of the offshore workers that return to the farm each season, and live on site during their work term, for a number of years.
Bringing new recruits up to speed on health and safety protocols, food safety measures and the necessary training requires an investment of time.
Vermeulen estimates that operations are about six weeks behind compared to a typical season as he continues to wait for more workers to arrive.
“We really need to get our offshore guys in,” he said.
The good news, he said, is that they're still managing to get a variety of crops in the ground for the major grocery chains.
“There's no shortage of demand.”
He said growing a wide range of crops can help balance out some of the losses linked to tough calls made in the planting stages if the harvest season goes well.
“We have to wait and see,” he said.
He said he's written off crops before, but he can't help but wonder how much food will be available in the fall if other farmers, like him, aren't planting as much as they typically would this spring.
Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture (NSFA) president Victor Oulton said the food supply will be impacted by the difficulties farmers are facing as a result of COVID-19.
“With the guys that have made the decisions not to put in certain crops, or as much of crop as they normally would, it's going to decrease the amount of production,” said Oulton.
“In essence it will make less food available, quite possibly, come summer and fall.”
The NSFA is encouraging Nova Scotians to consider exploring job opportunities at farms, Oulton said.
“There's lots of opportunity if local workers would like to work on a farm.”
A number of vegetable producers within the province are attempting to plan for the harvest season without a clear idea of how many workers they'll have on hand, Oulton said.
“Government, in my opinion, was a little slow in reacting because a lot of producers have already made the decision not to put in certain crops.”
Oulton said agriculture is typically a well-oiled machine, but COVID-19 has thrown a wrench in the works.
“This throws everything you ever learned right out the window.”
While many farmers appreciate the support made available through various government agencies to date, Oulton said it is crucial that the voices of industry representatives are heard as agricultural operations attempt to adjust to the new normal.
“All farmers want to do is make a decent living and, if something does go south with this COVID thing, that the government kind of has your back,” the Hants Countybased farmer said.
“A lot of these things are out of the farmer's control.”
Kings-hants MP Kody Blois, a member of the standing committee on agriculture and agri-food, said governments are assessing the impacts of the pandemic on a range of commodity groups.
“The concerns are different based on the commodity group that I'm speaking with,” he said.
He said some smaller-scale producers are benefiting from an uptick in local sales, but there are also a number of operations impacted by a decrease in demand from restaurants or backlogs at processing facilities.
“The difficulty, I think, is trying to assess where the need is best suited,” Blois said.
Talks about future support for farmers operating during the pandemic are ongoing.
“The prime minister has made clear that this is an initial investment from the federal government to address the challenges that have surfaced to date,” Blois said.
“There is a lot of uncertainty about what COVID-19 is going to present for challenges in the days ahead.
“We know the importance of food security,” said Blois.
“We know the importance of making sure that our farmers are taken care of during this time.