HALIFAX -- At least 40 per cent of Nova Scotia's strawberry industry, a sector worth about $18 million annually, has been damaged by an insect-borne virus, provincial Agriculture Minister John MacDonell said Thursday.
The virus has been detected in the Debert area and the Annapolis Valley, carried by aphids, MacDonell said. But he said he wasn't worried about the possibility of the virus spreading much further because of the relatively short distances aphids travel.
"The notion of a spread is relatively localized," he said. "I'm not thinking the virus in the Valley is going to wind up in Cumberland County."
He said a nursery stock that contained the virus was sold to other locations, and that's how it spread to multiple crops.
The affected plants aren't harmful to eat but they are often stunted and can't be sold, and berries may disappear from the plant.
MacDonell said there is a federal-provincial disaster relief program that the province has applied for, but it will be a month before a decision comes from Ottawa.
He said farmers are applying sprays to their crops and he has faith that they are taking the problem seriously.
