Land & Sea: One step ahead of nature

It's a crisp morning in November and an early frost has come over the fields at Mountain View Farms in Wooddale, just outside Grand Falls-Windsor.

It's turned the harvest into a bit of a slog.

But that's just the kind of thing Kent Fudge has gotten used to.

"I guess if you wanna be a farmer, you better love the outdoors. You better love all types of weather. If you don't like it, it's going to be a living hell," said Fudge.

Fudge grew up farming alongside his father. His mother still owns the farm next door, and his brother the farm next to that.

It's not an easy life, or an easy business, but it's one his family wouldn't trade.

"There's nothing better than plowing over the ground first thing in the spring, and then you plant your crop and it's starting to come up and everything looks nice ... it just makes you feel good," said Fudge.

Seeing those first shoots is never a sure thing in Newfoundland and Labrador where the weather can be unpredictable.

But for the past several years, vegetable farmers have had more certainty about their yield thanks to a program at the Centre for Agricultural and Forestry Development, also located in Wooddale.

Vegetables are grown inside greenhouses in the early spring, then those young plants are distributed to farmers to be transplanted in their outdoor fields.

The centre had been focused on growing tree seedlings since 1974, but when the departments of forestry and agriculture merged in 2017, a seed of an idea began to grow.

If the centre could nurture young trees, why not young vegetables too?

"It was realized that there were periods of the tree production cycle that there are greenhouses actually empty. So we saw an opportunity at that time to establish the vegetable transplant program," said Sabrina Elsworth, provincial director of agricultural production and research.

She says the demand from farmers is growing faster than the vegetables, "so we give them the head start on these plants, which means they can get the plant in the ground. So for a short-season crop, they can get the full maturity out of the crop, and they can harvest earlier." 

"I'll take advantage of the government's program, because I'm getting the plants, good good quality plants that I can use. So I'm putting in almost all transplant rutabagas where years ago I put in the seeded stuff. But the plants are already six weeks old, five or six weeks old. So you get a five or six week head start," she said.

This past season there were nine kinds of veggies sprouting at the centre, including leeks, potatoes, and cabbage.

More than 120 farms across the province are now receiving shipments of vegetables ready for planting.

In June, Fudge's fields are lush and ready for new growth. 

He and his crew sew seeds the way they've always done, but they also plant vegetable transplants.

Fudge knows which crops are the better bet.

"The problem is, if it gets too hot or too dry or the seed's too wet, they could rot or dry up, you don't know exactly what you're getting. Whereas with the transplant program, you're putting in transplants, the plant's already grown, half your battle is conquered already," said Fudge.

The vegetable transplant program has produced more than 2.7 million kilograms of food, so far.

Every kilogram of food grown from transplant veggies is a kilogram that doesn't have to be imported.

"The stores don't have very much storage. What you see on the shelf is mostly what they have. The warehouses have enough for Newfoundland for about three days. If we don't grow it ourselves, after three days we're in trouble," said Fudge.

A farmer's good fortune is a province's increased food security.

A big win from tiny seeds.

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