Managing the weather and workers
Island potato growers hoping for a drier harvest period as they struggle to fill labour force
BLOOMFIELD – Heavy rain early this week has thrown a wrench into the plans of any P.E.I. potato growers who wanted to get an early start on their harvest.
While some farmers are still hoping to get started before this week is over, the general manager of the P.E.I. Potato Board said the majority of growers were only aiming to get going next week.
Even then, Greg Donald said, that will put them slightly ahead of last year’s start.
Growers don’t need to be reminded of last year’s harvest; one marked with a killing frost on Sept. 25, and then nothing but wet, cold digging weather.
Donald said the industry is approaching the harvest with expectations of an average crop.
“Potatoes are an amazing crop,” he said. “Cool wet spring, dry summer, hurricane, frost, not enough rain/ too much rain, and we’re still hopeful we will have an average crop here overall.”
Donald said getting the rains when they’re needed has been a challenge. The amount of rain that fell in the two- to threeweek period that included posttropical Dorian’s dumping, he said, would have been welcomed had it come spread out through July and August.
He noted the central part of P.E.I. had a particularly dry summer, while the western end of the province, which was parched in July and August the previous two years, had a more generous supply of rain during the summer of 2019 and has the best potential of having average to above-average yield.
Besides the rain and the threat of more yet to come, Donald said some growers are being challenged to find enough workers to enable them to get their crop out in a timely fashion. Some members of the industry, he said, have invested in mechanized equipment to overcome labour shortages.
Glen MacLean of MacLean Farms in West Devon said finding workers to meet the seasonal needs of the potato industry does seem to be getting more challenging.
“We have everybody now, but it’s a struggle to get enough workers.”
Labour was the least of the worries for Miminegash-based Harris Callaghan.
“I’m OK,” he said. “All my crew comes back every year.”
For Callaghan, like most growers, the greatest unknown is the weather. He is expecting an average crop because it was late going in, but he said he will have a better idea once digging starts. He was hoping to have the equipment turning before the end of this week.
In Arlington, Farm Boys Inc. co-owner, Kyle Maynard is also hoping to be on the land before the end of this week.
“We’re not too bad off,” he said of the farm’s employment situation.
They posted and subsequently filled some job openings.
“At this time, we’re doing OK and now, to see if Mother Nature will give us the days to get the crop in.”
He’d like about 20 good digging days but said heavy rains have become an all-too-common trend in harvest season.
“I don’t know if it will be average, but I think we have potential of having an average crop,” Maynard said. “We’re hopeful, anyway.”