Are Canada’s maple syrup taps running dry?

In today’s The Big Story podcast, maple syrup isn’t just a staple of Canadian culture, it’s big business. Especially in Quebec, where the sugary liquid is so vital to the economy that the province keeps a special syrup reserve on hand to control price fluctuations. A couple of warm winters, coupled with increased demand ate up most of the excess, and now that reserve is now running dangerously low.

Warren Mabee is the director of the Queen’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy at Queen’s University. “It is a product that both producers and governments feel is a growth industry, that there’s room to get more maple syrup out there,” says Mabee.

With climate change bringing even warmer winters in the years to come, the syrup industry is on alert. Is this a challenge to be overcome with ingenuity, or a crisis in the heart of syrup country?

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