Wild rice crops take hit from weather

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This article was published 25/10/2014 (4227 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The beauty of wild rice, or any rice for that matter, is you just add water, whether to cook it or grow it.

But in the past year, Mother Nature has added water like never before and doused the crop, resulting in one of the worst harvests in history.

The wild rice harvest across the country, in particular Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario, is yielding barely 30 per cent of average. Prices are already soaring and the disastrous harvest is expected to cause a shortage by some time next year.

“People say, ‘How the heck does wild rice drown when it grows in water?’ But if it gets too deep, the plant actually does,” said Tracy Wheeler-Anderson, who owns Naosap Harvest in Cranberry Portage, Man., just south of Flin Flon.

They don’t actually die, but the grain, or rice, stays submerged and doesn’t mature.

“We had tons of rain last fall, which put water tables way up. Then we had abnormal amounts of snow. Then in spring, tons of rain again. All of our lakes, the water levels are way higher than normal,” said Wheeler-Anderson.

In addition, there were strong winds this year that shook the emergent grain off plants. “The ducks were happy,” she said.

Naosap’s supplier is her husband and his two brothers, who have been harvesting wild rice for three decades. The brothers harvest 18 northern lakes — rules allow a maximum six lakes per licensed harvester. They are looking at a crop right now of 70,000 pounds, versus more than 200,000 pounds in a good year.

Shoal Lake Wild Rice Ltd., operated by Winnipeg’s Ratuski family for 70 years, is hearing the same figures from its suppliers — crops are down 60 to 70 per cent in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Lake of the Woods area, said company president Murray Ratuski.

“Every area had a bad crop,” said Ratuski. “The reason isn’t just high water, but a cool spring, short summer, and early fall and the rice didn’t mature.” Wild rice is also very sensitive to even a light frost.

“There is certainly a shortage in Canada this year, and price will reflect that,” said Ratuski. Restaurants will also have trouble finding supply, he said.

The people hurt most may be aboriginal harvesters. George Starr of Sagkeeng First Nation, who has gathered wild rice by hand for many years, said a person could always make a couple of thousand dollars for a week’s work harvesting wild rice, but not this year.

“There was hardly any. I wouldn’t even try. There was none,” said Starr.

A larger harvester, Eric Sylvester of Birch Narrows Dene Nation in northwest Saskatchewan, who harvests by machine from a pontoon boat, saw his crop cut in half to 25,000 pounds this year. It’s the second bad crop in a row for him.

“It makes a big difference in cash flow. You still have all your operating costs, your equipment, your lease,” said Sylvester, who harvests wild rice to supplement his income. Northern Saskatchewan has many small aboriginal operators, thanks in part to the crop’s inclusion in the Saskatchewan Crop Insurance program. There is no such program for wild rice in Manitoba.

Wild rice is a specialty food. Shoal Lake Wild Rice website calls it “the caviar of grains.” The company cleans, grades, dries and roasts the rice, giving it its crunchy taste and rich mahogany colour. It sells over $2 million worth of product per year and markets it under labels Canoe or Floating Leaf (in spring, a long skinny leaf floats to the surface and photosynthesizes sunlight to grow the wild rice stalk below).

Ratuski will try to offset the shortfall in Canada with imports from California, where the crop is grown in man-made lakes that are then drained to allow for machine harvesting. But some customers will have to be turned away.

The company won’t be forced to lay off staff because it makes other food products and is also an accredited co-packager of other companies’ products, he said.

The poor harvest is making wild rice “a bit harder to find,” but the Neechi Commons grocery store in Winnipeg is still sourcing product, said produce manager Iain Brynjolson.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca