Atlantic Farmers are betting big on technology to beat labour shortages and an unpredictable climate. The payback isn’t guaranteed.

Peter Lederkin’s family has farmed beside Wolfville since 1760. He is the ninth generation to work the land; his son Aaron calls him “an apple historian and tree hoarder”. Most of the orchards on his 250 acres are still planted in old-style trees, the kind whose long branches create little green tents across the Annapolis Valley. Most of those orchards are run as U-pick operations, and Elderkin says families love to dive into the old trees. Picking becomes a shared experience and a memory.

An increasing number of Nova Scotia’s orchards look nothing like that. Growers are replacing big trees with small, densely planted ones with minimal root systems, strung along a trellis like a vineyard. Harrison Wright, an apple and berry specialist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Kentville Research and Development Centre, describes the result as “a two-dimensional wall of fruit.”

That wall is a bet, and an expensive one. A new high-density orchard can cost up to $40,000 an acre to plant. For the newest apple varieties, licensing fees can add as much as $100,000 to the up-front bill. Across Atlantic Canada, farmers are making similar wagers on machinery, sensors and data. The pressures behind them are a shortage of farm workers, weather that is harder to plan around, and markets that pay a premium for quality. “Your costs are so high,” Elderkin says, “you need payback early.”

Continue reading this story: click below to login/subscribe

Login or Subscribe