After starting out as an events manager at the winery, then learning about all other aspects of the business, from growing and harvesting grapes to processing, bottling and marketing, she gained a slightly different perspective.

“I started working at the winery in 2012 and got experience in all aspects of the winemaking business. It can be exciting and is always rewarding, but it is definitely not glamorous,” she says with a laugh. “It is a lot of fun and I love the business, but it’s also a lot of work.”

As a co-owner and general manager of Luckett’s Vineyard, Geena says her commitment is to produce a selection of quality wines that appeal to a wide range of tastes, and to provide a welcoming environment and amenities that help to attract thousands of visitors to their operation annually.

Her commitment to the farming operation as well as the wine industry earned her recognition earlier this year as Atlantic Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmer for 2024.

Geena grew up in a much different agriculture enterprise. She was raised in town, but her father, Pete Luckett, who immigrated to Canada from England as a young man, began a fruit and vegetable growing operation. The vegetable production later grew into several small stores across Nova Scotia known as Pete’s Frootique, a chain bought by Sobeys in 2015.

While in the vegetable business, Pete bought 100 acres of farmland near Wolfville in 2000. After considering a few options he decided to get involved in the wine industry and developed a vineyard on part of the land. Initially he grew grapes to sell to other local wineries, but in 2010 he decided to build his own winery, which opened to the public and produced his first vintage in 2011.

Meanwhile Geena was attending Dalhousie University, and at one time was thinking about joining her father in the grocery business. “But after a closer look I realized that the grocery business was not for me,” she said. For a few years she managed a tack shop serving the local horse industry. But the development of Luckett’s Vineyard caught her attention. She graduated from Dalhousie with a bachelor’s degree in management in 2012.

“As I said, working at a vineyard sounded pretty glamorous, so when the position of events manager came open, I applied and got the job and that’s where I started in the wine industry,” she says. “I later worked in all areas of the business which was a great learning experience.”

Since 2012, Luckett’s Vineyards has developed into a popular Nova Scotia winery, producing some 15,000 cases of red, white and rosé wines annually. There are 30 acres of vineyard on the home farm, and another 25-acre vineyard nearby. Those 55 acres of vines supply about 60 per cent of the grapes the winery needs. The rest are bought from other local growers.

The winery also features a bistro and an events centre. During the peak season the winery employs up to 100 people.

Geena has worked to make Luckett’s Vineyards a premier wine tourism destination, attracting up to 100,000 visitors per year, while producing wines such as L’Acadie, Osceola muscat, seyval blanc, chardonnay, riesling, Lucie Kuhlmann, Léon Millot, Triomphe d’Alsace and Castel.

“We’ve had to become flexible as we’ve dealt with issues such as COVID and it seems that Nova Scotia is feeling the effects of climate change with some fairly severe weather events,” Geena says. “We’ve had to be able to pivot and be adaptable.”

With annual maintenance and upgrades a regular part of their program, Geena points to a couple of major projects which helped improve overall operation. The open-air bistro and dining area have since been closed in, taking the facility from mainly two-season to three-season operation, running from April to Christmas.

At about the same time, the winery also expanded its processing, winemaking and warehouse capacity.

“We are always working on improvements, but those two major upgrades have made a tremendous difference in being able to expand our operation,” Geena says.

Looking ahead, with major improvements already made, she plans to focus on ways to improve overall efficiency of the operation and to increase awareness and sales of locally produced wines.

“Nova Scotia wines have about nine per cent of market in the province,” Geena says. “We produce some of the finest wines in the country, and types of wines you won’t find elsewhere. So I think we need to do a better job of making consumers aware of the products that are produced right here at home.”

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Producers in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, and soon Nova Scotia, will have access to a program that will allow them to purchase insurance on price protection for their beef cattle in case of an unforeseen market disruption.

The Maritime Livestock Price Insurance Pilot Program will be a two-year pilot project.

The lack of a program has meant more risk for Maritime beef farmers and challenges for young farmers to get bank loans without a way to mitigate that risk.

British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba all have the Western Livestock Price Insurance Program. Ontario has a Risk Management Program and Quebec has its Programme d’assurance stabilisation des revenus agricoles (ASRA).

The Canadian Cattle Association (CCA) “has long been advocating for an expansion to LPI (livestock production insurance) in the Maritimes given that producers in the region have been operating without this viable risk management tool,” said Nathan Phinney, CCA president and a beef producer in the Maritimes.

“The announcement by Minister MacAulay and his Maritime provincial counterparts is welcome news following the momentum built at last year’s Federal, Provincial and Territorial Agriculture Ministers’ meeting in Fredericton.”

The announced pilot project follows years of advocacy by both CCA and the Canadian Cattle Youth Council, following the implementation of LPI in the western provinces. LPI is a valuable tool for beef cattle producers in navigating uncertainty and risks related to adverse weather events. It is also critical for those entering the sector or looking to expand their operations.

“While the announcement of a pilot in the Maritime region is a step in the right direction, it needs to last longer than two years to impact longer term farm planning,” said Scott Gerbrandt, president of the Canadian Cattle Youth Council.

The program is funded by both federal and provincial governments.

“The livestock industry on PEI is such an important part of our farming ecosystem. Supporting this sector will assist in its advancement, and ultimately growth for the greater agricultural community,” said Bloyce Thompson, PEI deputy premier and minister of Agriculture.

How it works

Through the new initiative, purchasers pay 100 per cent of the premiums while both federal and provincial governments are making investments to administer the pilot program for producers.

On PEI, the Maritime Livestock Price Insurance Pilot Program will be administered by the Prince Edward Island Agricultural Insurance Corporation.

For more information on the Maritime Livestock Price Insurance Pilot Program visit, www.princeedwardisland.ca/MLPIPP.

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Those gains were partially offset by increasing emissions from diesel fuel, nitrogen fertilizer and land-use changes.

In a report released this week, the National Farmers Union (NFU) quantified agricultural emissions from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador.

The research compiles many data sources, including national inventory reports (NIRs), and Environment and Climate Change Canada data.

Without accounting for carbon sequestration or desequestration, the report estimates that emissions from agriculture fell to 1.5 million tonnes in 2021 from 1.8 million tonnes in 1990–a 17 per cent reduction.

The largest source of emissions continues to be cattle. Enteric methane from beef and dairy cattle, along with manure management, accounted for 0.52 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2021. This total has steadily decreased since 1990 as the cattle numbers declined. Efficiency gains have also decreased emissions, the report noted.

The NFU added that it’s difficult to draw a boundary line between emission that are and are not from livestock, as significant emissions come from production of feed grains.

Emissions from farm fuels decreased slightly to 0.21 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2021 from 0.29 million tonnes in 1990. This includes diesel and gasoline use, fuel oil, natural gas, propane, and emissions from fossil-fuel-fired electricity generation.

Between 1990 and 2021, the composition of fuel use changed significantly. Fuel oil accounted for about three-quarters of farm fuel emissions in 1990. In 2021, they made up under a third of emissions. Meanwhile, emissions from diesel fuel went from about a quarter of fuel emissions to about two-thirds.

Emissions from nitrogen fertilizer, including fertilizer production, also increased by almost 60 per cent in from 1990 to 2021.

The report also examined carbon sequestration since 1990. This included changes in woody biomass (e.g. removal of trees, shelterbelts), land conversion to cropland, crop residue carbon input, and others.

It concluded that each year since 1990, Atlantic agricultural soils have experienced a net loss of soil carbon. Desequestration seems to be increasing, the NFU noted, with the most significant factor being conversion of land–mainly forest–to cropland. Smaller areas of perennial crops are also behind the change.

Meanwhile, manure application has been the most steady source of carbon addition to soils, the report said. As livestock numbers waned, so did sequestration from manure.

The NFU acknowledged that work needs to be done to reduce uncertainty in emissions numbers. However, it said there is enough data to move forward of agriculture emissions reduction.

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Lee is expected to weaken into a strong tropical storm before making landfall in southwestern Nova Scotia as a strong tropical storm late on Saturday, the Canadian Hurricane Centre said.

Even so, the storm has the potential to dump as much as four inches of rain and produce winds of up to 97 km/h in some spots, prompting U.S. and Canadian officials to urge residents to prepare for possible flooding and power outages.

“Please plan ahead to stay indoors if possible on Saturday and check on your loved ones and neighbors,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said in a statement to the city’s 650,000 residents.

Some eight million Americans in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine were under a tropical storm warning, with conditions in those states expected to deteriorate on Friday and into Saturday, the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) said.

In Canada, more than one million people in Nova Scotia and eastern New Brunswick were also under a tropical storm warning as the massive storm crawls northward over the open waters of the Atlantic.

“Heavy rainfall rates and potential gusty winds are our largest concern for inland areas, with the addition of high surf and minor inundation along the coast,” the NWS said on Facebook on Friday.

Some spots, such as Cape Cod in Massachusetts and eastern Halifax County in Nova Scotia may see storm surge of up to three feet, forecasters said.

As of Friday morning, the storm was about 785 km southeast of the Massachusetts island of Nantucket as it moved north at about 26 km/h. It was expected to pick up speed and weaken through the day, the weather service said.

Lee is the latest storm in what is proving to be a busy hurricane season that has featured a higher-than-average number of named storms.

Just two weeks ago, on Aug. 30, Hurricane Idalia slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast. As it moved north, the powerful storm dumped heavy rains across Florida and southeastern Georgia, flooding numerous communities and knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses.

— Reporting for Reuters by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago.

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As of June 30, about 60 per cent of the country was abnormally dry to being in a moderate drought, with 76 per cent of Canadian farmland in that predicament.

Most of the Prairies had dry conditions of some sort, with a large part of southern Alberta in severe to extreme drought. As well, the drought monitor pinpointed a second pocket of severe drought in Manitoba west of Winnipeg; otherwise the province was abnormally dry to moderate drought.

“Overall, drought conditions continued to expand and increase in severity throughout the region,” the report noted of the Prairies. It said temperatures were 3 to 5 C above normal on the eastern half while the western half was 1 to 2 C above normal.

Some parts of Alberta saw drought conditions improve following a two-day rainstorm that brought flooding to areas west of Edmonton. Otherwise, the province continued to receive below-normal precipitation.

In Saskatchewan, the vast majority was reported to be abnormally dry with a large part of the province’s west rated as being in a moderate drought. There were also two pockets of normal conditions: one northeast of Saskatoon, the other south of Regina.

As with its Prairie neighbours, British Columbia was in abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions, with a sizeable pocket of severe to extreme drought in the province’s central area.

While northern Ontario was in abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions, the south was almost entirely normal. Only a narrow portion north of Windsor that extended along the east shore of Lake Huron rated abnormally dry.

The normal conditions reached eastward, almost to Quebec City where soil moisture levels were not as good. From the capital, Quebec was abnormally dry to moderate drought on either side of the St. Lawrence River, with some areas in severe drought.

In Atlantic Canada, much of New Brunswick was abnormally dry, as were parts of Nova Scotia, with Prince Edward Island in moderate drought. More than half of Newfoundland and Labrador was abnormally dry, with some areas in moderate drought.

One positive in the report was that no region of Canada was in an exceptional drought in June.

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Fiona recorded the lowest barometric pressure ever for a storm when it made landfall on Saturday as a post-tropical storm with powerful winds, rainfall and high waves, the hurricane centre said.

Farmers to fishermen in Atlantic Canada are seeking government help after the storm devastated vessels, farms and harbour infrastructure, with flooding now threatening to damage the potato crop in Prince Edward Island, which accounts for a fifth of Canada’s output.

“Even as we see the devastation, we also see, in conversations I had with fishers and farmers and folks who are cleaning up their lives and trying to recover, there is a resilience to Canadians,” Trudeau told reporters in Stanley Bridge, P.E.I.

DBRS credit rating agency said the storm could result in record insured losses for the Atlantic provinces, putting the initial estimate between $300 million and $700 million. But the industry should be able to deal with the blow as the Atlantic Canada property insurance market is relatively small, it said.

Insurance Bureau of Canada said it would take several weeks to get a clear idea of insurance claims.

By Tuesday morning more than a quarter of electricity customers in Nova Scotia were still without power.

Defense Minister Anita Anand told reporters the federal government was ready to send more troops to help with cleanup efforts.

The Canadian Independent Fish Harvester’s Federation on Tuesday sought financial help to rebuild infrastructure at Small Craft Harbours facilities and to recover lost and damaged fishing vessels.

While lobster fishing is minimal at this time of year, it will be critical to repair wrecked harbours before spring, when fishing picks up, said Kent Poole, who fishes in P.E.I. Canada is one of the world’s biggest lobster exporters.

‘Storability’

The potato harvest was just underway when Fiona hit and the rain it left behind may rot crops in low-lying areas, said Greg Donald, general manager of the P.E.I. Potato Board.

Farmers are also struggling to find enough diesel to run machinery, some lost warehouses, and many are still without power needed to operate conveyors and sorting equipment, Donald said.

“The big concern will be rot and storability, but time will tell,” Donald said. “If we continue to get rain, it’ll be a bigger problem.”

Many farmers in affected regions already have tractor PTO-powered generators to keep barns and other systems operating, Tim Marsh, president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture, told Glacier FarmMedia on Tuesday — “although unfortunately we’ve heard of a few cases where those have failed on startup.”

While those producers have been able to share generators and other resources, Marsh said it wouldn’t be surprising to learn of a “substantial amount” of product lost, due to lack of available storage, cut transportation links and other logistics issues.

Fruit crops such as apples and wine grapes may see some damage due to bruising or leaf loss on grapevines, he said, but the extent of that damage won’t be fully known until harvest is completed.

— Reporting for Reuters by John Morris; additional reporting and writing by Ismail Shakil and Rod Nickel. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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One of the worst storms Canada has ever faced left more than one-third of customers in Nova Scotia without power, swept homes into the sea and left at least one person dead.

Fishing is a key industry in Canada’s Atlantic provinces, which produce some of the world’s largest lobster exports.

Fiona destroyed some harbours on Prince Edward Island and scattered lobster traps for miles, leaving a long clean-up ahead, said Allan MacQuarrie, a director of the P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association.

“I’m scared to know what it’s going to look like, to be honest with you,” said MacQuarrie, who was cleaning up toppled trees at his home and had not yet checked his own crab traps.

“I’ll know tomorrow and you’ll hear me swearing in Saskatchewan.”

Osborne Burke, general manager of the Victoria Co-op Fisheries in Neils Harbour, N.S., told news outlet CBC that the plant suffered “horrendous” damage, and several 40-foot sea containers full of frozen fish were “thrown around like dominoes.”

He said no one was seriously hurt, but repairs will cost more than $1 million.

Canada’s lobster industry was spared worse damage because fishing is minimal at this time of year, said Geoff Irvine, executive director of the Lobster Council of Canada industry group. Fishers are planning to seek government approval to extend the season in certain areas to make up for lost time, he said.

National fishing and seafood accounted for $7.6 billion in Canadian gross domestic product in 2018, according to a 2021 government report.

Farm damage

Many P.E.I. dairy farmers lost power, shutting down milking systems that run on electricity, said Donald Killorn, executive director of P.E.I. Federation of Agriculture.

The storm disrupted early harvesting of potatoes and other crops, he said. P.E.I., the smallest province, produced one-fifth of Canada’s potatoes last year, according to Statistics Canada. Much of its crop is exported to the United States.

“We see huge destruction in our barns and our storage facilities,” Killorn said. “Damage to infrastructure is significant, it’s widespread and it’s catastrophic.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg.

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One 73-year-old woman died during the storm in Port aux Basques, one of the hardest hit towns on the southwest tip of Newfoundland with just over 4,000 residents, police said.

“The woman was last seen inside (her) residence just moments before a wave struck the home, tearing away a portion of the basement,” police said earlier. The coast guard and local rescuers recovered her body from the ocean on Sunday afternoon, according to a statement.

Port aux Basques is “like a complete war zone,” said Brian Button, mayor of Port aux Basques. More than 20 homes were destroyed and more than 200 people need shelter. The cost of damages “is in the millions (of dollars) here now,” Button said in an interview.

“We’re going to be months rebuilding. I think months is a conservative estimate for some of these people,” Rosalyn Roy, a resident of Port aux Basques, told CBC.

Fiona slammed into Eastern Canada on Saturday, forcing evacuations as wind gusts reached up to 170 km/h and the storm surge swallowed up homes on the coastline.

While the full scale of Fiona’s devastation is not immediately clear, the storm could prove to be one of Canada’s costliest natural disasters.

Scientists have not yet determined whether climate change influenced Fiona, but in general the warming of the planet is making hurricanes wetter, windier and altogether more intense.

Canada’s federal government is sending in the armed forces on Sunday to help clear fallen trees and debris, which will in turn open the way for crews to restore power, Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair told Reuters.

The province of Nova Scotia requested the troops and machinery to clear debris Saturday, “and we said yes, and so they’re being deployed today,” Blair said.

On Sunday, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador also requested federal support and troops are going to be sent, Blair said. About 100 troops are heading to each of the three provinces, Defense Minister Anita Anand told reporters.

The Canadian Hurricane Centre estimated that Fiona was the lowest-pressured storm to make landfall on record in Canada.

In 2019, Dorian hit the region around Halifax, blowing down a construction crane and knocking out power. Fiona, on the other hand, appears to have caused major damage across at least five provinces.

“The scale of what we’re dealing with, I think it’s unprecedented,” Blair said on Sunday.

“There is going to be… several months’ work in restoring some of the critical infrastructure — buildings and homes, rooftops that have been blown off community centres and schools,” he said.

Hundreds of thousands of residents across Nova Scotia, P.E.I., Newfoundland, Quebec and New Brunswick remained without power on Sunday. Blair said hundreds of utility crews had already been deployed to restore power, including some from the U.S.

In Nova Scotia, police urged people to stop going for fast food because drive-thru lines “are blocking roadways, which is impeding recovery efforts” and the situation is prompting calls to police dispatchers “who are already handling very high call volumes” according to a statement on Twitter.

In P.E.I. there were long lines at gas stations as many had to fill generators, and several communities were told to boil water before drinking because water purification systems were offline.

Officials warned on Sunday that in some cases it would take weeks before essential services are fully restored.

Farmers quoted Sunday by CBC reported livestock losses and damage to fruit trees and other crops, along with wrecked barns, bins and storage facilities.

The storm also severely damaged fishing harbors in Atlantic Canada, which could hurt the country’s $3.2 billion lobster industry, unless it is fully restored before the season kicks off in few weeks.

“Those fishers have a very immediate need to be able to access their livelihood once the storm passes,” Dominic LeBlanc, minister of intergovernmental affairs of Canada, said on Saturday.

— Reporting for Reuters by John Morris in Stephenville; additional reporting by Steve Scherer in Ottawa, Denny Thomas in Toronto, and Eric Martyn in Halifax; writing by Steve Scherer.

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Fiona powered up to a Category 4 storm on Wednesday, packing winds as high as 215 km/h, as it moved northward after carving a destructive path through the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

Hurricane-force winds are expected to reach Cape Breton, which has a population of about 100,000, by Friday and continue north over the weekend, Environment Canada said in an alert.

“This storm is shaping up to be a potentially severe event for Atlantic Canada,” the alert said. It was issued for much of Atlantic Canada, along with parts of southern Quebec.

Hurricanes are common in Atlantic Canada, with three to four storms entering Canadian waters on average each season and about half of those making landfall.

“We are really expecting damaging winds, possibly damaging storm surge, coastal flooding, flooding rains,” Environment Canada meteorologist Jill Maepea said.

“This is expected to be a very large system,” Maepea said, adding that authorities are anticipating several days of power outages in areas hardest hit by winds.

Parts of Cape Breton islands and eastern Nova Scotia have had rainfall throughout the summer, making them more vulnerable to flooding, she said.

Fiona made landfall in Puerto Rico on Sunday and has since caused devastating flooding and landslides on the island, a U.S. territory. Over the following two days, the storm gathered steam as it barreled into the Dominican Republic and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

About 40 per cent of Puerto Rico’s 3.3 million residents were still without water and three-fourths were lacking power on Wednesday, as authorities tried to determine the scale of the destruction.

— Reporting for Reuters by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa.

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And La Nina, in turn, is expected to produce hard cold snaps over the Prairies, above-normal precipitation over southern British Columbia and relatively mild temperatures with more snow over Ontario and Quebec, according to private forecasting agency AccuWeather.

The U.S. National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center on Oct. 14 reported La Nina — a weather phenomenon marked by unusually cold temperatures on the equatorial Pacific Ocean — had emerged over the past month.

“Negative anomalies” have been observed at depth across most of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean over that time, the agency said.

It also puts the chance at 87 per cent that a “moderate-strength” La Nina will continue over the period from December this year through February 2022.

Forecasters’ consensus then calls for a return to ENSO (El Nino-Southern Oscillation)-neutral conditions during the March to May 2022 period, the agency said.

AccuWeather, in a separate release Oct. 14 including the company’s annual winter forecast for Canada, said this La Nina’s effect, particularly over Western Canada, will likely be temperatures falling “even lower than they do during the average winter.”

Noting last winter’s weather was also under the influence of a La Nina, the company said a polar jet stream “amplified” by La Nina conditions can again lead to colder air and more frequent storms.

“The upcoming winter is expected to be fairly stormy from southern British Columbia through the Canadian Rockies with many opportunities for significant rainfall and strong winds along the coast,” AccuWeather meteorologist Brett Anderson said.

“Abundant” snowfall is expected throughout much of B.C.’s Coastal Range through the Rockies in western Alberta, he said in the company’s release.

“Based on what I see, I think this winter will be wetter than the past five winters in southern British Columbia,” he said. “I think this winter will certainly put a dent in the ongoing severe drought across south-central parts of the province. Conditions have already improved across southwestern British Columbia this fall as drought conditions have almost disappeared.”

Further east, he said, the polar vortex could be displaced from its normal area above the North Pole and drop into the Prairie region from time to time. “I believe we may see at least three extreme blasts of bitterly cold air dropping down into the southern Prairies this winter,” with temperatures dropping below -30 C at those points.

“This winter will likely end up colder than the winter of 2018-2019 and the coldest winter since 2013-2014 in the region.”

Cold snaps across the Prairies this winter should also force a secondary storm track well far to the south in the U.S., Anderson said, and drive storms through the U.S. Rockies and southern Plains of the U.S., before swinging northward into Eastern Canada.

“The majority of the snowstorms will track up into Ontario and Quebec,” he said.

Further east, the company said, the storm track skewing north and west, combined with “very high” water temperatures in the northwest Atlantic Ocean, favours a milder winter with average snowfall in Atlantic Canada. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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