‘Two months behind on some of our crops’: Local farmer hit hard by cold weather

By Andrew Cowie and Crystal Laderas

Unseasonable cold and heavy rain is hurting the bottom line for some local farmers.

Rosanna Forstbauer, a farmer from Chilliwack, said the cold weather and rain continues to affect the output of her farm.

“Things are really slow. We’re about a month and a half, maybe even two months behind on some of our crops. We haven’t been able to get into the field to plant … we’ve had some really cold nights in March, April, and May that have caused a huge delay in planting,” said Forstbauer to CityNews.

“It’s mostly because of the cold weather and the amount of rain that we’ve had. We’ve had a lot of rain, so then the fields stay wet and you can’t get into the fields (and) the ground is cold. The germination isn’t happening, especially with cold nights.”

In spite of the slow start, she explained there are chances for things to improve.

“The window hasn’t closed, we still have lots of opportunity to plant, it just means that our early crops aren’t in and our customers won’t able to get the product that they’re hoping (for) and then obviously that impacts our revenue.”

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She added while inflation hasn’t directly affected produce prices, they have had to increase the price of other products, saying “egg prices have gone up because feed (price) has gone up.”

Despite the poor crop output so far, Forstbauer said customers are happy to see the return of farmers markets and the knowledge their food is local.

“They’re excited to have stuff they know where it’s coming from.”

Early in the month, CityNews Meteorologist Michael Kuss said May 12 broke decades-old records for below normal temperatures.

“If you thought it was cold … you weren’t wrong — a dozen new records across the South Coast of low, high temperatures, including Vancouver setting a new record at 10.6. The old was 11.7 from 1945. West Vancouver setting a low record high temperature as well,” Kuss said.

With files from Claire Fenton and Dean Recksiedler

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