Wild blueberry optimism
/
by Dan Woolley
Nova Scotia’s wild blueberry industry has been through many challenges in recent years, said Peter Swinkels, president of the Wild Blueberry Producers Association of Nova Scotia (WBPANS), at the association’s annual general meeting at the Best Western hotel in Truro on Nov. 18.
Nevertheless, Swinkels sees exciting prospects ahead for the industry in the next few years.
Prices are encouraging, he said, “with two years of healthy prices in a row and demand for our fruit at all-time highs.”
Price stability remains a major concern and the association’s directors are working on it. Swinkels said wild price fluctuations make it hard for growers to make management decisions and plan reinvestments in their operations.
Regarding potential future crop yields, he said, “There is no reason we can’t have 4,000 pounds per acre.”
Swinkels said blueberry producers can make their farms more profitable and stable by focusing on improving per-acre yields and making their operations more efficient. “This includes working with Nova Scotia beekeepers to increase access to high-quality pollinators,” he added.
He said ways must be found to bring underperforming fields “up to profitable and consistent yields.”
Swinkels said the industry’s biggest asset is the support it receives from wild blueberry research programs, which have “put dividends into our industry in the past.”
As for business risk management programs, WBPANS is working with the provincial and federal governments on future programs “that will be more supportive of our industry,” said Swinkels.
“The association is looking at ways to work with our partners to make it easier for small and medium-sized farms to gain access to capital and allow for reinvestment in their operations,” he added.
Swinkels also said that ways must be found to facilitate new entrants into the industry and “for the next generation to have a pathway to a profitable future.”
He added that wild blueberries are Nova Scotia’s third-largest export income earner.
Neri Vautour, executive director of the Wild Blueberry Association of North America (WBANA) in Canada, told AGM attendees that his association has been successful in avoiding any U.S. tariffs on Canadian wild blueberry exports.
Vautour added that market demand for the fruit “went through the roof” and processors cleared out their storage.
He predicted that the demand for wild blueberries will remain very strong in 2022 and 2023. “Everybody around globe wants our fruit,” he said.
Vautour said WBANA has tightened its market development focus by mainly targeting social media and websites directed at Canadian and American consumers.
As for WBANA’s support for wild blueberry product research, its health committee has some recommendations, and two important research projects will soon be released in scientific papers, he said.
Vautour promised that WBANA Canada will continue to make research a priority. “Our job is to keep demand up,” he said. “Great news is a way of getting our message out.”
Looking at the 2021 season, WBPANS executive director Peter Burgess reported that Nova Scotia’s harvest was 50 million pounds, New Brunswick’s was 55 million pounds, P.E.I.’s was 19 million pounds, Quebec’s was just 30 million pounds due to recurring frosts, and Maine’s was 90 million pounds.
That’s a total of 244 million pounds compared to the five-year average of 249 million pounds.
Burgess attributed reduced yields to growers reducing their inputs due to price fluctuations in recent years.
He noted that it was an early growing season in Nova Scotia this year, with the wild blueberry crop “as much as two weeks ahead” of a typical season.
Burgess said that it was dry in June, there was sporadic frost in some fields, and there was some flea beetle and spanworm pressure. On the bright side, there was low incidence of Monilinia blight and “surprisingly low Blueberry maggot numbers.”
He added that Spotted wing drosophila was widely observed, with a higher incidence particularly in late summer.
Burgess said there was an excellent fruit set and the berry size was good, but some yield was lost at the end of the season. He added that it was also excellent weed-growing weather. But although frost and grasses reduced yields in some fields, there were also “exceptional yields” in other fields.
