Local produce is running out early after harsh growing season

Local produce in Nova Scotia is already starting to run outand spring is still a long way off.

"The fridge looks a little bit scant," said Krista Gallagher, owner and operator of Local Source, an independent grocery store with two locations in Halifax.

Depending on the time of year, between 85 and 90 per cent of the food at Gallagher's stores is from Nova Scotia. There is always less variety in the winter, but this year, Gallagher said the situation is much worse than usual.

Even winter staples, such as carrots, are dwindling.

"This will be the first year in Local Source history that we can see the bottom of the barrel of the carrots.... We usually have enough to make it to spring, for those spring carrots to come out, and we'll probably run out this year, which is devastating."

Not only were harvests relatively small last year, thanks to multiple extreme weather events, but Gallagher said an unusual amount of food is now rotting.

"We're finding that vegetables aren't holding up as well as they have in past years. I suspect it's from all the rain that they got from this last summer," she said.

Relying on more imports

The Warehouse Market, another independent grocery store in Halifax, is also facing a shortage of local produce.

Local leeks, squash and parsnips are already gone, and garlic and carrots will run out soon, said Elizabeth Milton, manager of Abundant Acres Farm, which owns the Warehouse Market.

"Things that would normally take us till spring, we are running out of now, and there's still lots more winter to come," she said.

Milton is turning to more imported items to fill customers' baskets.

"Demand is high and we're trying to offer all that we can. We're bringing in some stuff from a little far away just to supply people's desire to have good food," she said.

Milton said the market buys from a supplier in Montreal, which imports from across the country and abroad.

Farmers need more support

While last year's weather is an important factor in the current shortage, both Gallagher and Milton said it doesn't tell the whole story.

"We're facing a lot of farmers who are retiring right now, and we need support from the government to bring new farmers in and allow them access to farmland," said Milton.

According to Statistics Canada, the number of farms in Nova Scotia has been steadily declining for at least five years, and those that remain are struggling to be viable; Nova Scotia farms overall have been in the red for at least the last five years.

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Gallagher said hard years like the one farmers just experienced are pushing more towardretirement, without a succession plan in place.

"It's going to be more difficult to eat local if we're not supporting [farmers] now because there's no one else to take over that farm," said Gallagher.

Some of that support needs to come from consumers, Gallagher said.

A recent survey commissioned by the province suggested Nova Scotians spend about 30 per cent of their grocery budgets on local food, but Gallagher and Milton are both skeptical of that figure.

"I'm not sure we use the word local all the same," said Gallagher. "I think it's a really broad word and we're not all on the same stage when we're using the word local."

Gallagher said she likes the idea of a rewards program to encourage Nova Scotians to buy local an idea that the PC government pitched in its 2021 election campaign. But more than two years later, the program has not launched.

"I'm not sure what happened there or if they fully understood what it was. Let's revisit that," said Gallagher.

Last week, the deputy minister of economic development told a committee of the legislature the province has so far put $1.5 million into developing the Nova Scotia Loyal program, and it will be ready some time this year.