Mussels are getting to market but storm losses for P.E.I. growers at least $75 million

Two months after tropical storm Fiona swept by Atlantic Canada, some Prince Edward Island mussel and oyster farmers are nonetheless tallying up their losses and considering the challenges that lie forward.

Jamie Fox, minister of communities and fisheries, instructed a fisheries and oceans standing committee final week that the province continues to be working with the trade to get broken and misplaced gear out of the water.

Fox instructed the committee, which is listening to testimony on the affect of local weather change on fisheries, the present estimate of losses for shellfish farms on the Island is about $75 million, counting misplaced gear and misplaced time, in addition to the lack of mussel and oyster seeds that might have been the crop for future years.

Peter Warris is government director of the Aquaculture Alliance, the affiliation that represents shellfish farmers on the Island.

He defined mussel and oyster spat (seed) is collected in the summertime — the spat shares to submerged collector ropes. Step by step little mussels develop, till late within the fall when they’re massive sufficient to be stripped off the collector rope and positioned in mesh socks to proceed rising.

“I’ve received footage of collectors that have been thick with seed, and now they’re empty,” Warris instructed SaltWire. They have been shaken unfastened by the ocean surges created by Fiona.

That’s thousands and thousands of lacking seeds, tiny mussels that might have been the beginning of a brand new crop.

“It’s all simply gone, and there’s no technique to get well that,” mentioned Warris, including it will likely be spring earlier than some farmers will be capable to decide how a lot of their crop was impacted by the September storm.

The double whammy is that there is no such thing as a insurance coverage program that covers lack of marine crops.

The Division of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) at the moment manages aquaculture, however it doesn’t have an insurance coverage program just like the one obtainable to land-based farmers by Agriculture Canada, to cowl financial losses brought on by extreme and uncontrollable pure disasters like drought, flood, wind, frost or extreme climate.

The aquaculture trade has been lobbying for years to be thought-about as an agriculture enterprise, with eligibility for crop insurance coverage.

Fox made the purpose once more to the fisheries and oceans committee final week.

“I have to put this compared to a farm. Within the aquaculture trade . . .we plant that stuff; we develop them species to a market. No totally different than planting corn or potatoes in a subject,” he mentioned.

“And also you simply can’t take these merchandise out of the water and put them on a shelf till a storm goes by,” he added.

With local weather change creating the circumstances that may doubtless result in extra occasions like Fiona, Fox mentioned the Canadian authorities should begin aquaculture, and fisheries, in the identical approach they have a look at agriculture.

Warris may also convey that message to the fisheries committee when he testifies earlier than the committee subsequent week.

“It is a farming exercise that produces seafood,” he mentioned. “It’s not fishing.

“So, we want the identical helps that each different Canadian farmer receives.”

In the meantime, members of the trade are simply ready now to see whether or not they are going to be coated by any of the applications established to assist with restoration from Fiona.

Regardless of the challenges created by the September storm, not each farmer in each space was impacted, and shipments of oyster and mussels proceed.

In keeping with information from Statistics Canada, in P.E.I., reside oyster exports in 2021 have been $22.5 million. Stay mussel exports have been value almost $38.8 million.

To the tip of September, this 12 months, the trade exported $28.4 million in mussels whereas oyster exports have been at $27.7 million.

It had been shaping as much as be an excellent 12 months for exports.

“Oysters have been flying off the cabinets,” mentioned Warris. “Costs have been good and markets have been very sturdy.

“I assume that may proceed (and) I hope we don’t see any lack of market share due to shortages,” he mentioned.