Rows of withering pumpkin vines and undersized orange fruit are painting an unsettling picture on Canadian farms this season. Instead of a bounty ready for carving and celebration, many fields now echo the warnings of a warming planet and the toll climate change is taking on Halloween traditions.
Canadian pumpkin farmers are grappling with a harvest more haunting than festive. Unusual heat and an absence of rain have left experienced growers like Greg MacKenzie from Stratford, P.E.I., describing 2025 as a “spooky season” for all the wrong reasons. This year, his fields yielded smaller, lighter pumpkins, with many vines dying off before harvest. Normally, September rains revive struggling crops, but with dry skies lingering, farmers are watching their yields shrink week by week.
The phenomenon is not isolated. According to the Canadian Drought Monitor, about 71 per cent of the country faced abnormally dry to extreme aridity this summer, affecting roughly 70 per cent of farmland. Mike Williams from Ponoka, Alberta, found himself hauling nearly 300,000 litres of water since May just to keep his pumpkins alive. Other growers, like Roy Phillips in Ontario and Donna Warner in Niagara Falls, report mixed results—good quality, but far fewer pumpkins, and the jumbo sizes are missing this year. Warner, after three decades of farming, called it her most challenging season yet, as heat-stressed plants failed to produce enough female flowers, the essential start for any pumpkin.
Scientific assessments by the Canadian Climate Institute underscore the link between rising global temperatures and the increased risk of drought across Canadian farmland. The severity has driven crop insurance payouts to unprecedented highs, reflecting the struggle to adapt to unpredictable weather extremes. Danny Dill in Nova Scotia notes that, “there is no normal growing season, or if there is, we may get one every maybe six years.”
The impact ripples beyond farms. Halloween traditions may be reshaped as families see fewer pumpkins in stores and patch visits lose their familiar abundance. Yet, this challenge is also a call for community action—supporting local farmers, learning about climate resilience, and demanding solutions to safeguard both the harvest and our cherished celebrations for years to come.
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‘A spooky season’: Drought and heat reducing pumpkin yield in Canadian farms
