LONDONDERRY, N.H. — Farmers in New Hampshire say the tariffs that went into effect on Tuesday with Canada and Mexico are already having a negative impact, warning it will raise the cost of some food produced in the Granite State.
Dairy farmer Beth Hodge said she is bracing for a 25 percent increase in the cost of containers the next time she purchases them from her supplier in Canada.
Hodge, who is the co-owner of Echo Farm in Hinsdale, said her supplier will pass the cost of tariffs on to her, and while she doesn’t want to raise the price of her product, she believes it’s her only option.
“We are all struggling financially,” she said during a roundtable Monday hosted by US Senator Jeanne Shaheen. “Your product has to go up because there’s no way around it. We have to pass it along.”
Hodge said while it would be possible to source containers within the US, her farm already has the specific molds and plates that match the containers she orders from Canada. Plus, she said, there’s a lot of time and cost involved in switching to a new provider.
In addition to tariffs, she said some ingredients are also more expensive than ever, such as cocoa, which has reached a 50-year high, and eggs, as flocks face the strain of bird flu. At a meeting last week with Hannaford supermarkets, a Maine-based chain that distributes pudding from Echo Farm, Hodge said she increased the price of her product to try to keep up with her costs. It will take at least 90 days for those higher prices to appear on the shelf, according to Hodge.
“Those are the things that really are impacting us, but it’s also impacting the dairy industry at large,” she said. “We export a lot of cheese in this country. We export it to Mexico. Those things are going to be impacted.”
Also contributing to the price increase is the hay Hodge said she imports from Canada to feed her herd. Farmers are bracing for the cost of feed imported from Canada to go up.
Roger Noonan owns Middle Branch Farm in New Boston and is the president of the New England Farmers Union. He said organic dairy farmers in New England get most of their high-protein feed from Canada, and said tariffs will have a significant impact.
Noonan said one of the union members in central Vermont, Deep Root Organic Cooperative, includes seven farms in Canada. The cooperative contracts with Whole Foods and other organic vendors.
“They’re really in a panic right now,” Noonan said, because of tariffs. “They’re not sure if they’re going to be able to buy product from their members in Canada.”
While tariffs are supposed to make domestic products more competitive compared to imports, Trevor Hardy of Brookdale Fruit Farm in Hollis said he’s seen the opposite happen when it comes to some fruits and vegetables from Canada.
“The New England produce terminal in Boston, they quit buying honeycrisp (apples) from us, and they’re buying it from Canada,” said Hardy, who is also the president of the New England Vegetable and Berry Growers Association. He used to sell six to eight pallets to Boston every week.
Hardy said Canadian suppliers sell in the United States because the US dollar is stronger than the Canadian dollar. But, he said, the threat of tariffs led Canadian suppliers to lower their prices to avoid losing sales, undercutting his prices.
“All these tariff threats just ruined the market for US stuff,” he said.
“The cost to grow stuff in the United States is only going to continue to rise and have more outside pressure competing for our markets,” he added.
Amanda Gokee can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @amanda_gokee.
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