After an extremely wet spring, farmers in the municipality are getting back on track and staying optimistic.
Nearly 100 millimetres of rainfall in Chatham-Kent during April got crops off to a slow start. By the beginning of May, farmers were anticipating that the planting season for popular crops such as tomatoes, corn and sugarbeets would be delayed by one month.
However, according to Ron Faubert, president of the Kent Federation of Agriculture, many crops are beginning to get back to normal as the weather stabilizes.
"They got a late start so we need for them to progress quickly. The heat is helping that, the rain is helping that. The wheat harvest is getting started," he explained "It's too early to tell the final outcome we've still got a lot of summer and a lot of fall to go through with ideal conditions to make things catch up and hopefully have a successful crop."
Alex Wingrove with Country Market Garden in Chatham echoed Faubert's statements. Wingrove, who farms fruits and vegetables, said although things were a little rocky at the start of the season, they have begun to get back to normal.
"We actually use a lot of tarps to keep the rain off the field. So we were able to get in a lot earlier than a lot of other people. We have seen a lot of delays earlier in the season but things seem to be catching up now," Wingrove said. "Now we're moving into some of the main crops."
Although the heavy rainfall has decreased over the last few weeks, according to Faubert, it's now the one-off summer rainstorms that farmers have to be cautious of.
"We prefer an all-day rain because it soaks in better but beggars can't be choosy," he said. "I know other areas are struggling with the large amount that comes in one great big downpour. That hurts the crops, they sit in water in that heat and just die"
This is also a concern for Wingrove who said that he's noticed an increase in these kinds of rain events over the past few years.
"This year there's been a lot of extremes, a lot of things that were unexpected this year. Definitely, after the past couple of years, I've seen that there's becoming a lot more concentrated rain, storms, things like that," said Wingrove.
Overall, Faubert said farming is all about taking the unpredictable ups and downs of what Mother Nature throws at you.
"Being a farmer for as long as I've been, you just put it behind you and say 'next year's going to be better.' You work with what you have and make the best of it, that's part of being a farmer," he said. "Its not perfect, I don't think I've ever seen a perfect year. There's always something that happens and we're used to that. We just do our best and when things do break, we put in very long hours to make things happen."
