If there is one crop that farmers in the Garden State of New Jersey and neighboring Pennsylvania are known for it’s the summer tomato. This year, however, patrons visiting local farm stands were greeted with near-empty produce bins and high prices for the few tomatoes that were available.
The typical growing season for tomatoes in the region begins in early July and peaks toward the end of July through August. However, due to extreme heat waves and droughts this summer, peak tomato season did not come until the final weeks of October.
Ella Coscia, the Assistant to the Director of Farming at Snipes Farm in Morrisville, PA says, “We had a shortage of field tomatoes, pretty bad until about two weeks ago.”
Coscia, continues, “[The tomato shortage] really messed us up…Based on our crop plan, we planned to have a certain amount, a certain yield coming from our field to fulfill these contracts that we have. And with the heat waves and different issues with irrigation and just the plants just in general not liking the heat, it throws off that whole estimated crop yield.”
According to Coscia and Rhonda Yerkes, General Manager at None Such Farm in Buckingham, PA, who was also left scrambling to deal with crops’ unusual schedules, one of the only ways to deal with droughts is irrigation.
Yerkes says, “We did have to definitely irrigate. So we irrigated. We actually started in June to irrigate, which is not normal. Usually, we’re irrigating like July, August.”
Longer periods of irrigation come at a higher cost.
Coscia says, “There’s definitely a higher cost when you have to irrigate that much…Overall there’s also more labor involved when you have to irrigate because there’s whole rigs that you have to move and whatnot. So it definitely affects your labor budget…And then, do you have to change your pricing to offset that increase in labor cost?”
Laboring on a farm in extreme temperatures adds to the problems.
Coscia says, “When it gets that hot, it’s like it’s physically unsafe to work,” she added, “I had to shift my schedule to be able to come in in the evening sometimes after the heat broke.”
The costs associated with unpredictable yields, labor demands, and unsafe working conditions are passed on to the consumer.
Snipes says, “We’re definitely seeing an increase in pricing, and that’s directly because of increasing costs.”
Tomatoes weren’t the only items in short supply at farm stands.
Corn and leafy plants such as salad greens and bok choy faced similar problems. The summer’s first heat waves coincided with their core growing season, too, leaving disastrous results for many farmers.
According to the US Department of Agriculture Research Service, plant hardiness zones are shifting upwards, meaning that New Jersey and Pennsylvania could begin to see growing seasons akin to those in the southern part of the United States. Instead of a growing season that starts in March, soon it may regularly begin in February.
This is good news for heat-adapted crops such as kiwis and peaches, but also benefits invasive species like Japanese Knotweed, raising further concerns.
As Jeff Burd, a Mercer County NJ beekeeper, explains Knotweed is a nectar-rich invasive species, that is starting to emerge earlier.
He says, “You know it’s kind of a ‘what would Jesus do?’ question. You have invasive species that are taking over fields that are not good for anybody, except for the bees. But the bees really enjoy [it]. The bees feed off that, the nectar of the pollen. So it’s, how do you try to negotiate that?”
While the farmers grapple with these complex issues, there may be at least one silver lining for the fall.
Yerkes says, “This [weather] has been a good thing for pumpkins. They like dry weather. It has been one of the best pumpkin harvests we’ve seen.”
This article was produced as part of MCCC’s Community Reporting “J Lab” certificate program made possible by grant funding from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and The New School: Journalism + Design. For more information about the J Lab contact Program Director Prof. Holly Johnson at johnsonh@mccc.edu.
