Smaller produce at Minnesota's farmers markets: A sign of the drought

SAVAGE, Minn. (FOX 9) - This summer’s drought has far reaching consequences for so many. But one of the most obvious can be seen at Twin Cities farmer’s markets.

"We didn’t get the rain like over two months," Yii Novak of Novak’s Orchard said.

"You go six inches down and it’s completely dry, there’s no moisture in the ground, so everything is coming, it’s growing, but it’s smaller and it’s harder and things are dying," Savage farmer’s market manager Denise McCarnay said. "This season is tough."

Denise McCarnay runs things at the south-metro pop up on weekends, and the demand there is large.

"This is a beautiful day," McCarnay said on Sunday. "This is the most I’ve ever seen flow through here."

The larger crowds find themselves shopping for smaller produce in the drought year. 

"They’re happy to see the apples, but they made a comment like ‘the apple is so small this year’ and then I said ‘yeah, we don’t have a lot of rain’," Novak said.

Vendors are trying to keep up on the quality of what they sell by being pickier when out in the field harvesting crops.

"They can take the best of the best and it’s just you know less of it," McCarnay said.

"It’s been very difficult and exhausting, we’re very tired," Julie Backes with Pflaum Farms told Fox 9. "We’re putting in extra hours to irrigate."

Backes is thankful Pflaum Farm land in Farmington had irrigation since the crops needs the water.

"It’s very dry, if we don’t have irrigation or crops we don’t have crops, there are some that are not going to make it this year," Backes said. "Financially it impacts us quite a bit, so even though we do have irrigation it is expensive to run a system."

It’s also exhausting for them to wake up in the middle of the night to check on irrigation systems.

"Exhausting and difficult," Backes said. "It’s been a tough summer."