Manitoba berry farm turning customers away after flooding stunts growing season
Posted July 6, 2026 5:15 pm.
Last Updated July 7, 2026 2:10 pm.
The heavy rainfall in Stonewall, Man., and surrounding areas over the last month caused extensive damage.
That was the case at Boonstra Farms, normally a family summer staple for strawberry picking. But this year, the farm says it’s lost well over half of its crop, causing a major slowdown in business.
Farm owner Danielle Boonstra says their strawberries are getting hit on two fronts: a large portion of the acreage was completely lost to last month’s hailstorm, and for the fields that did survive, constant rain has caused rotting issues.
“So far we’ve lost for sure the 12 acres back there,” Boonstra said. “This has survived somewhat. There is still work to be done. We’ve had to do a lot of maintenance, we’ve had to pull all of the straw off of the plants, and we had to fix a lot of our underground irrigation even though we don’t need it right now.”
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It’s a big blow for a business that relies heavily on the three-week picking season. Boonstra says with fewer berries available, they’ve had to close far more frequently than usual.
“They get here and then I have to turn them away because we’re getting picked out quicker than normal,” she said. “We do have a hayride and petting zoo and play structure for kids, and so they do come out for ice cream. But what people really want to do is come out and enjoy the experience of actually picking with their family, and when we have to close early, it’s frustrating.”
Boonstra says it’s not just this year’s crop that’s suffered; next year’s crop was completely flooded, and the farm is hoping to recoup 80 per cent of the plants, if that.
“This whole field here, these 70,000 plants were all underwater,” she said. “Since then, it’s actually soaked up. Our plants are on hills, so a lot of the standing water was in between the rows.”
Boonstra says the farm has made a submission for Disaster Financial Assistance (DFA) funding, which was activated by the province in June, but she has yet to hear back. For now, Boonstra Farms is focused on getting creative to stay afloat.
“I know we’re looking into maybe starting up school tours,” Boonstra said. “We took that away for a little bit, but we might be doing some sort of tours to get different schools to come out. We’re still looking into that, but yeah, we definitely need to come up with a solution as to what we can do if this continues to happen.”
