Facing 2nd year of low prices, wild blueberry growers on P.E.I. ponder the future

P.E.I. wild blueberry growers know the price they will be getting for their berries earlier than they did last year, when they found out only after the harvest season.

But again this year, that price is lower than what the president of the association says they need to keep the industry viable.

Benny Nabuurs has 400 acres of wild blueberries in the Cardigan area of eastern P.E.I., and has been in the business for 35 years. He's also president of the P.E.I. Wild Blueberry Growers Association.

"The field price the growers are reporting is between 40 and 42 cents a pound, which is slightly above the 35 cents that was paid last year," he said.

"We are hoping that goes up, based on the fact that there's not a lot of inventory in the freezers right now and that the crop is average to maybe even a bit below average here in Canada."

Harvester Benny Nabuurs is president of the P.E.I. Wild Blueberry Growers Association. (Ken Linton/CBC)

Last year, Nabuurs said Oxford Frozen Foods in Nova Scotia paid growers 35 cents per pound, with Morell, P.E.I.-based Jasper Wyman & Son offering 40 cents a pound.

"Two years ago, the field price was 70 cents a pound," he said.

Concerned about the future

Nabuurs said growers did learn the price they'd be paid earlier, a measure they had been requesting from the two large processors.

"It was helpful, but at the same time it was a bit disappointing," he said. "There's always room for them to increase that price, and hopefully we'll hear something about that before the harvest ends."

Benny Nabuurs has about 400 acres of wild blueberries, and has been in the business for 35 years. (Mare McLeese/CBC)

Nabuurs said a second season of low prices could be enough to push out some growers.

"People that have been in the business for a long time are looking for ways to exit the industry, and preserve whatever value they still have in their farms."

With about 30 per cent of the berries still to be harvested, Nabuurs said the crop on P.E.I. looks to be about average, or a bit below average, making it even harder to make a profit.

Factors like winter kill on the buds and poor pollination could be the reason for that, he said.

"The berries are a good size, but there's just not quite enough of them to give us that bumper crop that everybody strives for," Nabuurs said.

Losing money

After the price plummeted last season, Neil Hardy made the decision to leave the industry — at least for now. He's still involved as a custom picker, but has even scaled back that part of the operation, selling one of his two harvesters.

"These days with everything costing so much, it's really hard to keep up with the inflation, and the cost of repairs," Hardy said. "We just made a decision that we would shut things down for a couple of years to see where the industry's going to go."

Neil Hardy has decided to put his wild-blueberry fields on hold until he sees where the industry goes next. He's still involved doing custom picking. (Ken Linton/CBC)

He said his operation "lost a significant amount of money last year," making the choice more clear.

"They will not give us a price for our berries at the spring of the year when we need it. So I just said, well... I'm just going to sit back and put my fields out of production for a little while, see what happens."

Hardy said it's "not a nice feeling" to watch growers struggling with the low prices for a second year in a row.

"I think it will change a lot of farmers' minds on what they're going to do with their fields if they lose money again this year.

"With the price being so low, we're probably going to have less and less low-bush blueberry growers on P.E.I."

Co-op benefits

The picture is brighter in western Prince Edward Island, where most growers are part of the West Prince Berry Co-op. That means they share the costs and sell as a group, not as individual growers.

Co-op member Brian McInnis said they're hearing they'll get a field price of 42 cents to start, going up to 60 cents.

"I know some people are very disappointed and somewhat discouraged, I guess, with it," McInnis said.

Wild blueberries just harvested near in Grove Pine, near Little Pond, P.E.I. (Ken Linton/CBC)

He said he too is seeing troubling signs for the future of the wild blueberry industry.

"I was down in King's County maybe two weeks prior to the start of the growing season, and I saw a lot of 'for sale' signs on property there, and word of mouth is people are selling out," he said.

McInnis said studies done by the P.E.I. Wild Blueberry Association have indicated a much higher price is needed for the industry to be sustainable.

"An 80-cent price would probably be able to handle the ups and downs of the lower crops due to climate change, or whatever occurs," he said. "The price of fertilizer in any farming industry is astronomical compared to what it was four years ago, and we've been seeing some new pressures put on by us, new insects that are affecting the crop also."

Wild blueberries in a field in Grove Pine, near Little Pond. (Ken Linton/CBC)

He added: "In my opinion, we're not asking for the world. We're asking just a fair shake in terms of what is available in terms of final price of our product.

CBC News reached out both to Wyman's and Oxford for comment.

A spokesperson for Oxford Frozen Foods said the company is a private business and doesn't talk about confidential negotiations on prices. Wyman's hadn't provided a response by publication time.