Niagara buds

Despite warnings that this winter would be one of the coldest ever, it turned out to be the opposite. This past month especially has had its fair share of record high temperatures. While most people are enjoying the warm and sunny days, this could really be a challenge for some of Ontario's fruit growers.

Historically, Mother's Day weekend (the second weekend in May) has also been the time of year when Niagara Region fruit trees would bloom. If you've never seen rows upon rows of peach trees with thousands of flowers you are definitely missing out.

Anyways, this year because of the warm weather fruit trees are already starting to bud. This wouldn't be too much of a problem if the warm weather were consistent, but there is a problem as soon as the temperature goes below freezing which it did last night. This kind of a cold snap can easily kill the fragile buds. Last night, the buds on many of the apricot and plum trees were frozen which could mean that these crops will be lost. Grape growers will not know until much later (probably July) if this frost has destroyed their crop for the year.

Recently there have been lots of social movements promoting local food. In Canada the ability for people to consume only local food is a seasonal luxury and we hear little about it during the rest of the year. The reality is that while apricots and plums may only be in season for a month or two, early spring is just as important in their availability later in the summer. While this is not making headline news, I think that it is important for Canadians to know about the challenges facing their local farmers. I'm interested in this mostly because my extended family grows peaches and grapes in Niagara-on-the-Lake, but I'm also a fan of the movement promoting local food consumption.

This summer I hope to have plenty of Canadian fresh fruit, but this spring makes me wonder what other challenges farmers will be facing. While Canadian farmers have worries about frost, farmers in Burkina Faso are facing drought challenges. These dry climatic conditions have West Africa set up for a severe food crisis this year. Despite being on opposite sides of the world, both Canada and Burkina Faso share concerns over crop failures due to climatic challenges. Everyone is connected somehow!