Drought is intensifying for farmers in the Atlantic provinces who need water in the coming weeks.
“CTV News” reports that the weather forecast calls for light rain in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and the provinces of Terre-Newfoundland and Labrador.
Dry weather takes its toll: In Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, farmers are using their water supply two months ahead of schedule.
“We irrigate all the time,” said William Spurr, president of the Nova Scotia Horticultural Growers Association. For the past two and a half weeks we have been irrigating as usual in July and August. We’re not even into June yet.”
The principal in question indicated that he planned to install an expensive irrigation system later this summer, but had to do it earlier than planned to avoid losing apple trees.
“I’m a little worried about what will happen if we don’t get rain,” he admitted. If this continues, we will face many problems,” he said.
“It would be very worrying”
For his part, Greg Donald, general manager of the Prince Edward Island Potato Board, noted that the region received only a quarter of the rain normally expected in April and May.
“If we get good rains in the next two weeks, it will be good, but if not, it will be very worrying,” he said.
According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, parts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia experienced a record drought in April.
