Mixed results this summer for N.B. berry producers

The rainy summer has produced mixed results for berry producers in New Brunswick, with the weather destroying some raspberry crops while blueberry producers are reporting a boom.

The summer's wet weather has destroyed about 85 per cent of Leonard Grenier's St. Isidore raspberry crop in northeast New Brunswick.

"At the beginning, the rain helps," Grenier said. "The raspberries were coming in good, beautiful. But after that it gets a little bit dark then it's coming black. Then you can do nothing with it."

Meanwhile, the rain has produced a bumper crop of blueberries, said Joseph Savoie, a member of the New Brunswick Blueberries Association.

"They're bigger because they have more moisture, less sun. For the blueberries, wet weather is good," Savoie said.

Blueberry producers will harvest more than 13.6 million kilograms this year, he said, about 4.5 million kilograms more than in 2007.

But blueberry prices have fallen from $2.33 per kilogram in 2007 to about $1.32 per kilogram in 2008.

The crop matured faster than expected and getting machinery through the wet ground will cost producers about $1.32 just to harvest each kilogram of berries, Savoie said.

It will mean many farmers will be lucky to break even, he said.

Pierre Roussel, a blueberry producer in Brantville, agreed the bumper crop will be a challenge financially.

"It's going to be bad for producers because there's not going to be too much of a season for them because it's going to cost them quite a bit of money to do their field," Roussel said.

Grenier said he'll also lose about $35,000 after the poor raspberry harvest this season.