Berry plant growers want RMP

Thursday, January 9, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

Berry plant growers have asked the Ontario government for help in establishing a crop insurance type program similar to what’s available for farmers growing food crops.

Kevin Schooley, executive director of the Ontario Berry Growers Association, says they wrote to the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food in December asking for a program. Currently there isn’t one for farmers growing the strawberry and raspberry plants for growers producing the fruit, but the plant growers “are at high risk.”

Schooley says for plant growers, if they have a disaster, “there’s nothing to fall back on except your savings. If that happens more than once you’re in big trouble.”

Plant growers can use some of the programs under Growing Forward 2, the national agricultural policy framework, such as AgriStability and AgriInvest, “but if you cash in on one of those programs it takes a number of years to build that back up again,” he notes, adding that if a grower has a poor year “it brings your margins down.”

In Nova Scotia, a mix of viruses decimated half of the province’s strawberry plants in early summer last year. “It’s a similar concern that we have here. It could be a virus or fungal pathogen or something that comes in,” he says. If strawberry producers can’t find a good, healthy source of plants, “it puts the whole industry in jeopardy.”

In December, the Nova Scotia and federal governments announced up to $2.3 million in funding under AgriRecovery, part of Growing Forward 2. AgriRecovery enables the government to help farmers hit by unforeseen disasters that results in extraordinary costs and where help is needed beyond what they can get under existing programs. The money is available to growers to help them replace diseased plants with healthy ones.

In Ontario, there are viruses in “our fruiting fields right now,” Schooley says. “We want to make sure that when a fruit grower gets plants, he gets clean plants. But it could be discouraging for plant growers if the risk” to produce plants is too high.

There are three growers producing strawberry and raspberry plants in Ontario. Two of them produce exclusively for the southern U.S. market.

Since writing the letter, Schooley says they’ve talked to ministry officials but so far haven’t received a formal response. Ministry officials had questions and wanted some background. “We’ve been happy with the response we’ve gotten so far,” he says.

Ministry spokesman Mark Cripps says by email the ministry is prepared to work with the berry growers to better understand their request. Deputy agriculture minister Deb Stark has arranged a meeting with the group to discuss their request further, he says. BF