{"id":48910,"date":"2025-10-01T11:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T11:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/48910\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T11:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T11:22:10","slug":"wild-blueberry-crop-in-maritimes-has-taken-a-hit-from-prolonged-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/48910\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild blueberry crop in Maritimes has taken a hit from prolonged drought"},"content":{"rendered":"

This summer’s prolonged drought across Atlantic\u00a0Canada has had a costly impact on wild blueberry growers in New\u00a0Brunswick and Nova Scotia.<\/p>\n

Donald Arseneault, executive director of the industry group Bleuets NB Blueberries, said that as this year’s harvest was wrapping up,\u00a0the total yield was believed to be 70 per cent less than the\u00a0previous three-year average.<\/p>\n

“This year has been tremendously dry and we haven’t really\u00a0seen this in a long time,” Arseneault said, adding that this year’s\u00a0crop amounted to about 20 million pounds, down from the annual\u00a0average of 68 million pounds.<\/p>\n

The industry, which ships its product around the world, was also hurt by delays caused by the provincial government’s decision\u00a0to temporarily shut down the harvest as it tried to deal with a\u00a0growing number of wildfires that flared up amid tinder-dry\u00a0conditions.<\/p>\n

“Farmers have lost so much money,” Arseneault said. “Unfortunately, we’ll probably see this again in future years as we
all battle through climate change.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"middleDonald Arseneault is the executive director of Bleuets NB Blueberries. (Submitted by Donald Arseneault)<\/p>\n

Some of the province’s 175 wild blueberry farmers are now\u00a0thinking about selling land to make ends meet, and they want\u00a0financial compensation from the province’s Liberal government, he said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve knocked on the government’s door,” Arseneault said. “We’re preparing our data and we’re hoping that the government\u00a0will be there at the table with us to find a way.”<\/p>\n

The wild blueberry industry estimates it contributed $81 million to the New Brunswick economy in 2021, the latest date for
which figures are available.<\/p>\n

The world’s only commercial wild blueberry industry is concentrated in Atlantic Canada, Quebec and Maine, where the\u00a0export-driven industry routinely boasts of how its wild plants \u2014\u00a0also known as lowbush blueberries \u2014\u00a0produce a sweeter, more potent\u00a0flavour than their cultivated highbush counterparts.<\/p>\n

In 2024, lowbush blueberries were Canada’s second most valuable fruit export, generating $313 million, according to
Statistics Canada data. Highbush blueberries generated the most\u00a0export value at $382 million. Apples, cranberries and strawberries\u00a0were the next most valuable exports.<\/p>\n

As their name implies, wild blueberries can’t be planted. Instead, they can only be encouraged to grow by producers who tend\u00a0to a crop that can only be found in highly acidic, well-drained\u00a0soil. Their cultivated cousins are planted in rows like most other\u00a0crops.<\/p>\n

Most valuable export crop in Nova Scotia<\/p>\n

In Nova Scotia, wild blueberries represent the province’s\u00a0most valuable export crop, generating $121 million in annual\u00a0exports, well ahead of the apple industry’s $31 million, according\u00a0to provincial data.<\/p>\n

Janette McDonald, executive director of the Wild Blueberry Producers Association, says hot, dry weather is being blamed for\u00a0reducing yields by 55 per cent to about 20 million pounds. As well,\u00a0she says higher-than-average overnight temperatures also hurt the\u00a0plants.<\/p>\n

“Also of concern is what next year’s crop is going to look like,” she said in an interview. “Wild blueberries are biennial.
So we have fields that don’t produce in one year, and those are\u00a0called sprout fields. And this year, the sprout fields are also\u00a0seeing damage.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nova Scotia wildfires helped renew the province’s blueberry crop<\/p>\n

A Nova Scotia blueberry farmer lost his equipment and 20 per cent of his crop in a wildfire this summer, but his fields are already showing sprouts of growth as the plants bounce back from the fire.<\/p>\n

Prices being paid to growers are rising amid a lack of supply, she said.<\/p>\n

“For many growers, even with an increase in the price that’s paid to them, they’re really not meeting their cost of
production,” McDonald said, adding that prices were low in the last\u00a0two years. “So it’s tough for growers to manage the downturn.”<\/p>\n

Still, she said it’s difficult to determine the impact on growers because many of them have other crops to rely on, and others\u00a0have jobs outside of farming.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s too early to tell what that’s really going to look like in the months ahead, but certainly the market demand is\u00a0there,” McDonald said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the P.E.I. Wild Blueberry Growers Association could not be reached for comment, but published reports\u00a0suggest the Island’s yields have not fallen as sharply as that of its\u00a0closest neighbours.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Quebec accounted for 42 per cent of Canada’s wild blueberry production, followed by New Brunswick at 25 per cent, Nova\u00a0Scotia at 21 per cent and P.E.I. at 11 per cent, according to federal\u00a0data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This summer’s prolonged drought across Atlantic\u00a0Canada has had a costly impact on wild blueberry growers in New\u00a0Brunswick and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-48910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}