It’s shaping up to be a happy Halloween for prairie pumpkin producers.
A short supply in the United States and Eastern Canada has created strong demand and good prices for growers in Manitoba and Alberta. Saskatchewan produces few pumpkins for commercial consumption.
Growing conditions were ideal on the Prairies this year. The crop was slow to start, but a hot and dry July and August finished pumpkins off well.
Most of the production in Manitoba is centred in Portage la Prairie and an area outside of Winnipeg.
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“(The harvest) wasn’t as big as last year’s, which was a record, but it is certainly above average and we’ve virtually sold out of everything we have,” said Larry McIntosh, president of Peak of the Market, a Winnipeg-based vegetable supplier.
Manitoba growers supplied the company with 675,000 kilograms of pumpkins this year. Major grocery chains have already committed to buy the entire crop, he said.
The situation is good in Alberta as well, said Paul Ragan, vegetable specialist with Alberta Agriculture.
Last year was a disaster for the province’s growers because of a poor crop, combined with an oversupply from Manitoba, Washington and British Columbia. But conditions have flip-flopped this year.
“There’s some indication that a lot of Manitoba crop is going east to fill the void in Ontario, so we don’t have the Manitoba market pressure here.”
Alberta has six major commercial pumpkin growers in the south and they all harvested a good crop. Weather conditions co-operated so the pumpkins ripened to orange before harvest.
“Most growers got the majority of their crop off the field before we had the very hard frost on Sept. 22 and 23.”
Prairie growers primarily produce “carvable” pumpkins for the Halloween jack-o’-lantern market. They are bigger than the variety used for making pies, cookies and soups.
Ragan said most of Alberta’s crop moves through wholesalers in Edmonton and Calgary, but some is sold directly to consumers at farmer’s markets throughout the province. One commercial producer sells her crop right off the farm, like a Christmas tree lot.
“She will just lay out the pumpkins in the field and have the consumer pick whatever pumpkin they want – trying to simulate a pumpkin field.”
Another trend is to give pumpkins as gifts.
“We’re seeing more pumpkins being bought for promotional purposes,” Ragan said.
Real estate companies and organizations like the Boy Scouts and Kinsmen clubs have been bulk buying in recent years, he said.
