Continued frost has everything 'rolling backwards' for farmer

There was another frost across Prince Edward Island and the costs are piling up for many Island farmers.

"It's kind of disheartening," said Greg MacKenzie of MacKenzie Produce in Stratford.

"Everything's rolling backwards. We're holding off on planting because of the frost. There's no sense planting knowing it's going to get set back or wiped out."

MacKenzie operates greenhouses and protects his fields with row covers to get his produce out to market early. It's an important part of his business plan, because early produce can earn premium prices. The frost has brought a serious setback to those plans.

"We checked everything after supper on a Sunday night and things looked good," he said.

"But the wind was up and sometime between nine and one o'clock in the morning the wind blew the covers off and we had an onset of frost, and it was 100 per cent kill."

It meant the loss of nearly half a hectare of beans. In all, MacKenzie estimates the cold weather this month with overnight temperatures dropping below 5 C seven times in June may have cost him as much as $20,000.

MacKenzie said it is a problem that is not just affecting him, but farmers all around the Maritimes.

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