Phyllis Smith heads out on the clear waters of Agumik Lake to survey her dense wild rice patch, checking the size and quality of the grain by knocking the plant against her boat.
While hard rice tumbles out of some kernels, others are empty — eaten and destroyed by rice worms, a pest that is wreaking havoc for harvesters in northern Saskatchewan and hurting their livelihood.
“Every year it seems to get worse,” said Phyllis, who has been picking rice for more than 30 years. “You’re almost at a loss now what to expect.”
As rice worms spread from the U.S. and Manitoba into Saskatchewan waterways, hurting the harvest for the traditional crop, there are growing calls from harvesters to find a solution.
Many warn there is little time to find a way to mitigate the damage before the future of wild rice — a food used by Indigenous people for thousands of years — is under threat.
Phyllis and her husband Tommy Smith have harvested around the community of Pinehouse, Sask., about 380 kilometres north of Saskatoon, for decades, learning how to grow and pick the plant from their own families.
They first started to see occasional worms in the rice during the past few years, but the pests were prolific in last year’s harvest. The couple gathered just 20 bags, down from an average of about 400 bags before the insects arrived.
“You depend on rice for a lot of things, so it’s pretty devastating,” said Tommy, who estimates he lost more than $40,000 last harvest.
“It is a huge loss. It takes a toll on you financially.”
Wild rice is a major economic driver in many Cree and Métis communities in northern Saskatchewan. A good harvest can bring in as much as $100,000 for a family, who often hire help.
A large processing plant and local buyers who transport the bags of rice also generate jobs.
But the reduced crop is depleting income, leaving some employees with little work and causing some harvesters to consider selling their equipment.
A team of researchers from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan Polytechnic and the National Research Council of Canada have been collaborating with harvesters to try and learn why the worms are moving north.
Tim Sharbel, a plant sciences professor at the University of Saskatchewan, is part of the group that has been visiting northern communities to engage with harvesters and work toward a solution.
He said researchers don’t know why exactly the worms are moving north, but they believe forest fires and the transport of bags between different lakes could be factors.
“You get new growth and then it provides kind of an opportunity to the rice worm moths,” Sharbel said. “The moths can actually feed on the nectar of the fireweed or milkweed. We’re not quite sure yet.”
The team is also developing a type of trap, which was tested on some lakes near The Pas, Man. It uses pheromones — a natural chemical from insects — to attract the rice worm moths away from the rice before they lay eggs.
The first phase of testing proved successful in collecting a large quantity of the insects, and researchers are hoping to conduct further trials this spring.
“I think it’s very promising,” Sharbel said. “We have a lot of support from the harvesters that we’re working with. Clearly, people’s livelihoods are being affected by this.”
Pankaj Bhowmik, a senior research officer at the National Research Council, is working with a handheld device called an “electronic nose” to study the composition of the rice and how it contributes to the flavour. The hope is to deploy more technology to harvesters to help collect valuable information on the crops.
“We can have both the traditional knowledge and the modern science and data that we are generating,” he said.
At the weigh station in Pinehouse — a large blue scale set up next to a truck — local harvesters arrive with bags to sell.
The rice, which will go to Beauval and then on to La Ronge for processing, is crawling with squirming rice worms.
Lionel Smith, who works as a local buyer, is also a longtime harvester in the community.
But this season, so much of his crop was killed by the insects he decided not to collect rice at all.
“Twenty, 30 per cent of your crop is damaged, some even more. So we don’t pick that area because we can tell that it’s heavily, heavily invested by worms,” he said.
In addition to his work as a commercial fisherman, wild rice earns Lionel anywhere from $70,000 to $100,000 in income per year.
He’s hopeful the collaboration with scientists will lead to an effective solution for the insects.
“We’ll keep on. It’s not something we’ll give up on. That will never happen,” he said.
Lionel said a bigger problem is the challenge of an aging workforce, with most harvesters now in their 60s and few young people entering the field.
On Agumik Lake, Phyllis Smith is getting ready to see what this year’s harvest brings. An initial pick to test the quality showed some worms, but fewer than last fall.
She said some harvesters, including her and her husband, have thought about selling their equipment and leaving the industry.
“You almost feel like there’s no use for me having a harvesting boat. I don’t know if I’m ever going to have healthier rice again,” she said.
“I almost want to give up.”
