Farmers in Hants County worried about future of centuries-old dikes

Some farmers in Hants County are upset the provincial government has bought local agricultural land protected by dikes, as the infrastructure bears the brunt of climate change.

Tim Marsh, a farmer in Poplar Grove, N.S, said the purchase is related to the deterioration of dikes, which threatens the viability of his operation — and food sovereignty in the province.

"We can mitigate climate impact on our food by growing as much as humanly possible in the area, and an acre of dikeland is worth many acres of upland," said Marsh, who farms around 60 hectares of land that's protected by dikes.

Dikes have protected agricultural land along the Bay of Fundy for hundreds of years. But farmers like Marsh are concerned maintenance is lagging as storms become more powerful. The mounds of dirt reached their limit in July as record rainfall caused water to flow onto farmland, roads and into homes. 

The provincial government was approached by local landowners interested in selling farmland protected by dikes so it could be used for a tidal wetland restoration project, Agriculture Minister Greg Morrow said in response to a letter from Kody Blois, the member of parliament for Kings-Hants.

'The maintenance hasn't been kept up'

Marsh said he is concerned that about 24 hectares of land that he rented from another landowner will no longer be used for agriculture.

That piece of land will be used for "a variety of purposes" moving forward, the Department of Public Works said in a statement, without elaborating.

We haven't revamped and brought them up to speed. It's like a Model A Ford out there.- Craig Bauchman, Hants County Federation of Agriculture

Morrow also said, in response to Blois, that the land purchased by the provincial government won't likely support agriculture in the long-term due to flooding. 

But Marsh said the flooding might not have happened if the dikes had been better maintained over the past two decades.

"The maintenance hasn't been kept up," he said. "It's been dropped further and further behind."

Provincial legislation to protect diked agricultural land created a commission that advises on upgrades to the infrastructure. But only three of the five positions on the commission are filled and one of the vacant positions is the chair. Local farmers said that is leading to further harm to the dikes and surrounding farmland.

"Without that [marshland commission] you didn't get a proper input of what agriculture needed," said Craig Bauchman, director of the Hants County Federation of Agriculture.

A statement on behalf of Morrow said applications are currently being reviewed to select a chair for the commission.

Nova Scotia's dikes last underwent a significant upgrade in the 1950s and 1960s.

"We haven't revamped and brought them up to speed," said Bauchman. "It's like a Model A Ford out there."

In 2019, the provincial and federal government announced $50 million in funding to upgrade a quarter of the dikes in Nova Scotia. The province said that project is in the the design and construction phase.

Protection from floods and erosion

Straightening out the historically curvy dikes in Nova Scotia can help protect agricultural land from floods, according to Danika van Proosdij. She is a director at Saint Mary's University's TransCoastal Adaptations centre, which develops plans to upgrade dikes or restore salt marshes to mitigate climate change.

"Even Acadians, when they built their dikes, they moved them. They didn't keep them in place for all of the years that they farmed them," van Proosdij said.

Marsh, a second-generation farmer, now questions whether his children will be able to continue farming.

"If the dikes aren't going to be maintained, then this farm's not viable."

Marsh has received offers to sell some of his less productive land at higher elevations for development, he said.

"It's ridiculous amounts of money that have been offered, and maybe I'm foolish to turn them down. But I'd rather see it stay as farmland."