An enterprise-level economic analysis of losses and financial assistance for eastern Ontario maple syrup producers from the 1998 ice storm

This paper reports estimates of the costs of damage from the ice storm of 1998 for two producer size categories of maple syrup operation (1000 and 3000 tap) and three damage levels (light, moderate and severe) for eastern Ontario. These size categories represent approximately 500 and 1500 trees in production, respectively, given the general practice in the region of installing two taps per tree. Damage categories were defined on the basis of the proportion of average crown loss inflicted by the storm. Partial budget capital budgeting and stochastic simulation were used to generate interval estimates of damages. Sensitivity analysis was used to explore the robustness of the estimated damages. Estimated losses for 1000-tap operators with light, moderate and severe damage were $5385, $13 821 and $28 721, respectively. Losses for 3000-tap operators with light, moderate and severe damage were $14 160, $37 399 and $75 630, respectively. Average government financial assistance was found to be within 5–30% of the estimated losses.