Inflation in New Brunswick has shown up in city budgets, salads being removed from menus because a spike in the cost of lettuce, and high energy costs — now it’s hitting the Christmas tree business.
David Kirkpatrick is a fourth-generation Christmas tree farmer at Lo-Hi Christmas Tree Farm in Hoyt, around 55 kilometres south of Fredericton. He said the cost of fuel and fertilizer are the two main reasons the holiday staple has increased in price this year.
“It’s costing you $70 right now to fill a 20-litre jug to get diesel — just to get fuel to get trees out of the woods … it takes quite a bit of horsepower for that to happen, they just don’t grow on people’s lawns,” said Kirkpatrick.
“Christmas trees are an agricultural crop. So it takes fuel to make all this happen.”
10-15% increase on tree prices
Matthew Wright, an Atlantic representative for the Canadian Christmas Trees Association, said the Christmas tree industry finally reached a place where growers were getting a healthy margin on their sales, but when fuel prices sky-rocketed, Wright said that profit was being “eaten up.”
He said this meant a 10-15 per cent increase for the price of Christmas trees this year, somewhere in the range of $40-$70 per tree.
Kirkpatrick said he’s noticed a spike in demand this year for Christmas trees, which he believes is related to fewer people getting involved in agriculture, causing smaller farms to close with no one to take them over.
The business also had a U-Cut this year where families could cut their own trees but had to close it early to avoid over-cutting because of demand.
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When over-cutting happens, he said there is nothing left for the next year, and it means some people might be left with lower quality trees that are still a couple of years away from being ready.
Wright said he’s heard a lot of talk about Christmas tree shortages, but says that’s more of a localized issue that can be chalked up to regional floods or droughts — challenges he says haven’t really impacted Eastern Canada.
But with the talk about shortages, Wright said it leads people to feel the need to buy their tree earlier.
“It’s put enormous pressure on growers to cut trees far too early for what any natural plant should be harvested,” said Wright. “We work hard to make sure we have good quality trees with good water retention properties. But there’s a limit.”
For Kirkpatrick, despite inflation and some of the challenges that came this year, he still keeps going.
“You [have] good years and bad years. That’s just part of being involved with agriculture in general,” he said.
“So we just grin and bear it and we just go on to the next year.”
He said seeing happy customers come back year after year makes it all worth it.
This story was originally published in CBC News on Dec. 13, 2022.
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