On a sunny Thursday, in a parking lot just off Interstate 95 in Wells, Lisa Smith, 58, of Berwick, patiently waited outside a large refrigerator truck selling wild blueberries from Burke Hill Farm in Cherryfield.
She said she used to live in Ellsworth and vacations in Pembroke, where she first sampled the smaller wild blueberries from farms like Burke Hill. She said they are sweeter.
“Once we get a taste of the little Maine ones, we can’t eat the big ones,” she said.
If the current weather trends continue, however, fans like Smith may not have a choice. While a statewide industry organization remains optimistic, farmers like Ben Perrin, who owns Burke Hill Farm, are worried that long-term effects of climate change are making it too hard to grow the beloved wild berries.
“The wild blueberry industry in Maine is on its way out,” he said.
Perrin started his farm in 1998. Back then, he said, Maine growers were producing five times as many berries each year as Canadian growers to the north. That, he said, was before climate change took hold.
“Now, it’s the opposite,” he said.
One obvious environmental factor has been drought, which has gripped parts of Maine each year for the past three years. A rainy June won’t help, Perrin said, as the typical growing and harvesting season doesn’t start till later this summer.
“It’s the rain in July and August,” he said.
Lisa Hanscom, co-owner of Welch Farm in Roque Bluffs, said changes in weather have hurt her farm, too. Her family has owned and operated the farm since 1912. As recently as a decade ago, she said, she can remember harvesting as much as 150,000 pounds, as opposed to just 35,000 pounds now.
Hanscom agreed lack of rain is an issue. She hasn’t harvested as much of her 32 acres as she has wanted to for the past three years. Even this year, June’s rains are actually causing problems instead of solving them. Hanscom said June is typically when the blueberry bushes flower, but the wet weather means less pollination.
“We had that bloom, but the bees weren’t working,” she said.
Temperatures are a problem, too, Hanscom said. There was little to no snow cover over the past winter, but it was cold enough for winds to kill off the tips of some of the bushes, like frostbite. That means they won’t bloom in the spring.
“I think the cooler weather has been better in Canada than for us,” she said.
Both Hanscom and Perrin said warmer weather is already affecting harvesting times. They used to collect after the first week of August. Now, both said they were doing it in late July.
“It’s just a few degrees difference, and that few degrees makes all the difference,” Perrin said.
Eric Venturini is the executive director of the Wild Blueberry Commission of Maine, a nonprofit that represents the industry and works with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension on industry and farming research programs. While he is upbeat about the future, he acknowledged there have been weather-related problems for Maine growers.
“The industry has seen some significant drought impact,” he said.
Statewide, however, he said wild blueberry production has ebbed and flowed. It was down as much as 45% in 2020, while in 2021 the state produced 105 million pounds.
“We had a banner year,” he said.
Even in 2022, Venturini said, the drought caused the most damage to growers in the Midcoast, as opposed to Washington County, which produces 80-85% of the state’s wild blueberries. As a result, he said, the state produced 77.6 million pounds, which remains on par with the current average.
“Industrywide, it was not a bad year,” he said.
Venturini acknowledged that some weather-related problems may be here to stay, saying, “Climate change is a challenge, surely.” He added, however, that the commission and the university continue to work on ways to help keep wild blueberries growing in the state.
“I think the future of wild blueberries in Maine is a good one,” he said.
Hanscom, by contrast, said she was worried. Both she and Perrin operate out of Washington County, and she recalled a tale of family lore about her great-grandfather, who was the first generation of her family to run the Roque Bluffs farm.
“He used to joke and always say it wouldn’t be too long before we were growing oranges instead of blueberries,” she said. “Even back then, they knew that climate change was happening.”
Hanscom said she wonders every season whether or not to harvest all her acreage or start scaling back output altogether.
“Those are questions I think every blueberry grower has been asking,” she said.
In the Wells parking lot on Thursday, one thing that appeared certain was demand. Burke Hill Farm has been selling blueberries like this for years, in quick monthly drop-offs that last only minutes per stop, all over the state and into New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. The farm’s website informs buyers where to be and when.
A dozen people lined up Thursday to buy blueberries from the truck, and Bonnie MacNeill, 76, of Ogunquit, was first in line. She eagerly showed off the fruits, deep blue and glistening in the afternoon sun. She said she has been coming to the monthly drop-offs for about a year now.
“Sometimes I get three, four boxes for neighbors,” she said.
When asked if she was worried that someday she might not be able to get wild blueberries so easily, she held up the box she had just bought and said, “That’s why I bought another box. I’ve got one at home in the freezer!”
Smith, who was buying from the truck for the first time Thursday, said she hoped she could keep buying them, and uses them to bake blueberry muffins at home.
“A couple of years ago, you couldn’t even find them frozen in the grocery store,” she said.
Even if you could, MacNeill said, frozen is never a substitute for fresh.
“It’s not as good as these,” she said, pointing to her box.
Perrin, 50, said he doesn’t plan on farming blueberries forever. He estimates he will retire in about 10 years, and like Hanscom has dire concerns about the future.
“By the time I’m done, the industry’s going to be done,” he said. “If it’s not done, it’s going to be on its last legs.”