secretary of the Lake Melville Agricultural Association. “Just as a trial we grew and ate a half-decent watermelon this summer.”

   The farmers not only sell their produce in the local market (where the growing volumes of food on offer only meet a fraction of the demand), but they also ship orders to both the north and south coasts of Labrador and people drive all the way from Churchill Falls to buy their fresh vegetables.

   This is not the situation many of Upper Lake Melville’s farmers would have predicted for themselves only a decade ago, when they were being uprooted from their first farms along the Trans Labrador Highway because of chemical contamination spreading from the nearby military airbase.

   “It was a nightmare to get through,” says Joyce Pye, who now works a 100-acre spread alongside Mud Lake Road with her husband and two employees. “What made it so hectic is we had to move out of our house and they (the Department of National Defence) only gave us a short time.”

   The Pyes had worked for 15 years to clear and plant the land on their first farm. When the necessity of abandoning it to the encroaching pollution loomed over them, they had to face a difficult decision.

   “About ten years ago we decided we’d have to give it up, or make it (a new farm) big enough to support labour. The compensation for the old place wasn’t tied to agriculture. We could have used it for anything.”

   However, they used what they received to take an initial 50-acre lease of wooded land in 2005 and they started clearing it right away. Now, seven years later, the success of their work still seems to surprise them. Their fortunes turned out better than they’d hoped.

   “It (the move) was to our advantage – the soil is better and it’s easier to clear,” says Joyce. “We’re better off now, although we didn’t see that at the time.”

   The Pyes achieved their goal. Their new farm now produces enough of a wide variety of crops to pay the salaries of two people from about March to October, as the growing season demands. They’ve recently added to their holdings, taking on another 50-acre lease, much of which they are now clearing in order to make room for a large-scale potato operation.

   “There’s no question of markets,” says Frank. “We’re not making a dent on the local market. I’d go close to saying we’re supplying less than half of one per cent. It gives you room for growth.”

   He added that the total annual demand for potatoes in all of Labrador has been estimated at around two million pounds, while only 15,000 to 20,000 pounds are currently grown in the region.

   Hard work got the Pyes to where they are, but of course good weather and a lengthening growing season have both helped, giving most farmers abundant crops in 2012, a year that had more days without frost (from early May to Sept. 21) than any year since at least 1959 – according to one of the older farmers.

   Neighbours of the Pyes enjoyed the same good year. Agricultural partners Herb Brown and Des Sellars took some bumper crops of various kinds off their land beside Mud Lake Road, although not everything did as well. They expect the conditions that made it possible will continue. Brown takes note of the changing climate, but he also credits some of Labrador’s natural advantages.

   “The growing season is longer than it used to be. Spring comes almost a month earlier than it used to 25 years ago and almost that much is added in the fall,” he says. “We have soil that’s the envy of the province with no rocks anywhere and we get more heat units, more sunshine than the island gets – arguably as long anyway: anywhere from 90 to 120 days, which is pretty good.”

   Rain or shine, agricultural production in central Labrador appears set to keep growing. Some farmers are still negotiating compensation with DND over lost land, but most have established new holdings and are labouring to expand them, selling their produce from their barns, their parked trucks and at the weekly town market as fast as they can offer it for sale.

​

Downhome, November 10, 2012