Cost for real Christmas trees to rise due to fewer Manitoba tree farms

If you’re looking to spruce things up with a real Christmas tree this year, it may cost you a bit more.

“We used to have 14 farms in this area and now there’s only about three or four, that’s it,” said Michael Kisiloski, owner of Country Pines Tree Farm.

Kisiloski says he was able to sell over 200 Christmas trees in three days. While it’s great for business, he says the declining number of tree farms in Manitoba is leading to increased demand but fewer places in the province to buy a real Christmas tree.

“All of the kids don’t want to take over the family farm right now.”

According to Shirley Brennan from The Canadian Christmas Trees Association, Manitoba has only 35 Christmas tree farms.

Despite the decreasing number of dedicated Christmas tree farms, Brennan says there are a growing number of other farmers who are looking to use part of their unused land to grow Christmas trees.

“We’ve had an influx of calls from people that have said, ‘OK, I have property, I don’t utilize it all for my farming.’ We know that not all acreages are prime land. A lot of acreage has marginal land, that’s what Christmas trees grow on,” said Brennan.

According to Brennan, the association has seen tree farmers increase the cost of a tree on average by five per cent across the country due to the cost of running a farm going up.

“Fertilizer––50 per cent increase in fertilizer. Insurance on our farms have gone up. Some Christmas tree farms pay anywhere between $15,000-$20,000 a year for insurance,” said Brennan.

John Neumann from Neumann’s Market says while he has noticed a slight increase in fuel costs when travelling to purchase trees from growers, he hasn’t noticed an increase in the cost of the actual trees he gets from his suppliers.

Despite the increase in fuel cost, Neumann says he will not be increasing the prices for his trees this year.

“I would rather see someone have a more affordable tree so they could still have a more normal Christmas,” said Neumann.

Kisiloski who has been a tree farmer since 1992 and is going on to grow his fourth generation of trees, says people don’t know that it takes at least 10 years for a tree to be ready to be sold to the public.

It’s why he says there needs to be more tree growers in the province to continue the tradition for many families of celebrating Christmas using a real tree. 

“I try to maintain a little bit of reality with the pricing because it is getting out of control it seems like. If we had more growers the cost would be down,” said Kisiloski.