A recent study by Farmers for Climate Change revealed that climate is a top worry for producers. Respondents listed reduced profits and yields due to extreme weather events as key concerns. Many producers expressed interest in adopting new practices to develop greater resiliency.
Seventy-six percent of producers said extreme weather had an impact on their operations over the past five years, with 34 per cent saying they were significantly impacted.
In Nova Scotia, the last decade has seen an increased number of hurricanes, late frosts, drought, drier springs, wetter falls and a polar vortex. The impact can be seen across all types of agriculture and producers find themselves pivoting to meet the challenges head on.
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Lisa Jenereaux, co-owner of Spurr Brothers Farms in the Annapolis Valley, says they’ve seen the gamut when it comes to weather and admits it’s been challenging.
As a fifth-generation fruit farmer, her family has grown apples and potatoes in the region for decades.
“Our farm has always been diversified,” she says. “If you have a lot of different stuff, then if you have a bad year in one thing, you can hopefully make it up with something else. It kind of levels off.”
She says that hasn’t been the case for the last five years.
“We’ve had losses. They’re more significant, and they’re affecting many crops.”
While the federal government offers some support to farmers, Jenereaux says the programs aren’t suited to most Nova Scotia growers, who are almost penalized for being diversified.
She says insurance helps but you can’t go back to that well repeatedly without repercussions, such as increased rates.
They knew they had to do something different.
Go big or do something different
Spurr Brothers used to farm over 200 acres of potatoes, and they considered expanding.
“You either have to be niche, or big. We had to decide where to put our focus,” says Jenereaux.
When they looked at the cost to “go big,” Jenereaux and her partners (brother, William Spurr, and cousin, Katie Campbell) decided to look for something outside of agriculture.
They opened a farm market and began to make and sell hard cider.
The market was a relatively easy pivot, she explains. They already had a small farm market where they sold apples and other vegetables, and Spurr had been making cider as a hobby for several years. They built a new building, added a greenhouse, created public spaces and made it an attractive destination for families.
Jenereaux says it’s worked out better than expected in some ways. Not only have they created a hub for the community with family-focused weekend events, but if the strawberry crop ripens too quickly due to a heat wave, they can pick and freeze them for use in cider later. Before that option existed, the crop would have been lost.
She says they focus on ways to mitigate the worst of the impacts caused by weather.
For example, it’s important to manage the amount of water around fruit trees, because the root stock can’t tolerate sitting in water. “In fruit trees, we always do tile drainage. We’ve had more and more weather events with massive rainfall, and floods are more of an issue,” says Jenereaux.
To combat wind, which could easily flatten a modern orchard, all new plantings use a trellis system.
“We put the posts closer together, and every post is in the ground as deep as possible, no exceptions. If the post won’t go in, we’re getting the backhoe and digging that post in. We’re using more wires. There’s no room for error.”
Another change over the last few years is that now all the orchards are irrigated.
“It’s been getting a lot hotter a lot earlier,” she explains. “Spring used to be our wet time, but we’re seeing a lot of dry spells in May and June.”
In the past she wouldn’t turn on irrigation until July, maybe late June. “Now there are times in late-May when I’m thinking ‘I better get this irrigation going.”
She says water is always top of mind now when they plant a new field or orchard.
“You might have chanced it before, we’d have a couple of weeks of dry weather and then you’re going to get rain,” she says. “But now, you could go for four weeks without any significant rainfall. So, when we’re planting that’s our highest priority. Do we have a pond big enough, do we have a water source large enough? It’s not just supplemental anymore, you might have to water your crop for the entire season, and that’s a big shift.”
On the flip side is the cold. Late spring frosts can kill a berry crop or reduce the apple yield. While not much can cost-effectively be done in the orchards, Jenereaux says they use fabric covers and overhead irrigation on the strawberry fields to mitigate damage.
Long-term pasture management pays off
Jenereaux isn’t the only producer noticing issues with water. On Nova Scotia’s Northumberland shore, John Duynisveld, and his daughter Maria, of Holdanca Farms also worry about water.
Holdanca Farms is the 2024 recipient of The Environmental Stewardship Award (TESA) from Canadian Cattles Association. Duynisveld says his father started managing the farm with a focus on the environment in 1988 when he implemented rotational grazing.
And, while weather has always been a variable, he’s noticed how it’s changed in the last few years.
“We get extremes of dry or wet weather. In 2020 our rainfall levels were 25 per cent less than normal,” he says. “From June to September, we had a significant drought… by our standards.”
He says the summer was so dry beef and sheep producers started feeding hay in August.
It was the first year since 1988 that he had to feed supplemental feed before January.
“We got close to normal grazing, but we had to vary paddock size based on the number of cows, how much grass was ahead and to allow grass time to recover.”
It was the opposite in 2023. The summer was very wet, and the sun never shone.
“We couldn’t make hay,” he said. “Winter feed is typically hay-bale grazing. In 2023 we didn’t hay, but we had a huge amount of leftover forage on the pastures and continued to graze until February 7, until our first major snowfall came. We still had feed left on the fields after that, and they were back on pasture the 7th of April,” says Duynisveld.
He says the decades of rotational grazing and pasture management has helped build resiliency on his land. “It helps me raise a good product and it reduces personal stress.”
The pastures support approximately 25 head of his own cattle, around 100 ewes plus lambs, and he provides custom pasturing for another 60 to 100 head of cattle for other farmers.
Additionally, he grazes about 5,000 chickens, 600 turkeys and a couple hundred laying hens. Theres’s also between 150 to 160 pastured pigs.
But the effect of changing weather is about more than enough pasture to graze.
“We’re (also) seeing changes with parasite loads. In 2023 we had more rain, less frost and more parasites were able to overwinter. There was nothing to set them back,” Duynisveld says.
Increased summer heat is something Duynisveld also takes seriously.
“The last two summers we’ve had the longest period of heat stress. In June and July, we had two to four weeks in a row, versus two, three, four days. It impacts productivity.
“We’re changing fences and pasture layouts to incorporate more shade,” he explains. “Fields that are more wet, we’re looking at ditching and planting shelter belts with controlled access. The ditches cross the fields, and a series of ponds collect the water. There’s potential to apply this strategy to over 100 acres.”
On the flip side of dry summers is a delayed winter.
“Our winters are milder, which on one hand means we can extend grazing.”
Duynisveld says in the 1990s he couldn’t put a fence post in the ground after November because it was frozen solid. This year he could put a post in anywhere until January.
“In the fall, things are growing later. Our last 10 years of moving sheep, even in mid-November we’re seeing an inch or inch-and-a-half of growth. That’s much later than before.”
But he worries about the lack of snow cover.
“We were dry from early August to late November. The water table hasn’t recovered. We have a system and it’s normally flowing steady this time of year. Right now it’s barely a trickle. This is the flip side of not having the snowpack and the spring dampness.”
His holistic approach means he’s pivoting to adapt to the challenges by letting some pastures over-mature and go a little heavy. He looks at the other species living there for validation he’s doing the right thing.
“My daughter does ‘bio-blitzes’ to identify living organisms. We have well over 1,000 species, 140 native pollinators. Small changes help us all with overall resilience to the extremes in weather.”
Some like it hot
The lack of water and heat are a boon for some producers.
Back in the Annapolis Valley, in an area known as the Gaspereau Valley, farms like Luckett Vineyards are noticing the changes in weather too.
Vineyard manager Marcel Kolb came to the area 19 years ago from Switzerland. He’s noticed a change since he arrived, but says it’s gotten more significant in the past five or six years.
“We used to talk about global warming, now we look at the extremes, we brace ourselves,” he says.
Wind, rain, heat, cold, too much, too little, or simply at the wrong time, can cost a crop.
For vineyards, warmer weather later into the fall and earlier in the spring, extends the growing season. Kolb says budding starts earlier, and the harvest can run later.
“Now we’re hoping for snow (as) it’s a water source (to) fill our reserves and ponds. This wasn’t a concern 20 years ago.”
While the lack of water is a concern, the area where Lucketts is located is on heavy loam soil. Kolb says new vineyards must install tile drainage to protect the vine roots, which extend deep, from too much water.
“Two years ago, we had 250-280 mm of rain, and we couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. In 2024 we had almost no rain for over two months. Should we have had irrigation? Maybe. It might have improved the overall yield, but it isn’t feasible yet in the vineyard.”
Planting clovers, grasses and legumes between the vines helps improve soil drainage and nutrient management through organic matter. These areas also provide habitat for beneficial insects and birds.
While the lack of snow is an issue, extreme temperature swings are more challenging and harder to manage.
“The polar vortex was a perfect storm. Two weeks earlier we had warm weather, Mother Nature had started to wake up, then the cold air hit.”
The result was devastating. Not only did producers lose the year’s crop, but whole sections of vines had to be replanted.
Late spring frosts are a worry, but producers mitigate them with a variety of tricks.
“The buds are swelling then, and a frost can cause damage,” says Kolb. “We can’t do row covers because they’re difficult in a vineyard. Some producers have installed windmills or use sprayers. We have automated propane heaters. We can’t do the whole vineyard, but we can use them in the higher-quality areas.”
Changing temperatures mean a different type of pivot for vintners.
“Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen a lot of new varieties, such as Chardonnays and Rieslings, which are more adaptive to the weather and are better designed for our area.”
He adds that change can benefit consumers because more choice is locally available.
“These days you can get everything from sparkling to ice wines and everything in between.”
Kolb often thinks about where they’re headed in the next 10 years.
“Change is happening, everybody can see it. It (will be) interesting to see how we can adapt. We have to make crops more resilient.”
Weather data points to climate variances
The anecdotal evidence of hotter, drier summers, more frequent heavy rain events and milder winters is backed by data collected by Environment and Climate Canada.
Ian Hubbard, a meteorologist with the department, says the weather is definitely changing.
Data from Greenwood, in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, shows that from 2001 to 2024 the humidex jumped over 42 C 10 times. Three of those events were in 2018, one in 2019 and another in 2022.
“In a typical summer we’d have a couple days where we talk about these kinds of humidex values,” Hubbard says. “We’ve seen an increase in the number of consecutive days the past few summers. That affects people, animals and vegetation.”
Ironically, 2018 and 2019 also saw rainfall significantly higher than average.
However, rainfall was less than the annual average in seven of the last 10 years. In 2023, Greenwood reported its driest summer in nearly a decade.
Hubbard says springs have been getting drier, pointing out that 2023 was exceptionally dry for the region. However, in July of that year there was significant rainfall of over 200 mm.
“That was rarer than a one-in-100-year storm,” he says. “The last comparable storm with that much rain would have been Hurricane Beth in 1971.”
What really stands out for him are the number of named storms in the Atlantic Basin. This is where hurricanes form and while many of them don’t make it this far north, the area has seen an increase in the number of storms reaching Atlantic Canada.
The hurricane season runs from June 1 to the end of November and is at its peak in September and October during prime harvest season for many crops including apples, grains and grapes.
“In a normal year, there would be 14 named storms in the basin which would strengthen to become hurricanes,” he says. “This past season there were 18. The last several years there have been at least 14.”
Hubbard says while the numbers may fluctuate from year to year, they do expect future storms to become stronger, contain more rain and more wind.
Other extreme events in the region included the arctic blast in February of 2023. The area saw temperatures plummet to -25 C when a mass of cold air sat over the region for days. The extreme cold came on the heels of a week of mild temperatures. Reports show the rapid temperature switch damaged many crops.
Overall, Hubbard says the data paints a picture of extreme weather occurring more often.
