Dry season hits hard for farmers

Yields below average in southwest but above average in northwest

Jean Harrington figures a couple inches of rain in early July made the difference between a bad crop and a disastrous one.

“The crops are better than we anticipated,” said Harrington, who together with her husband, John, farms around 7,000 acres of wheat, canola, peas, mustard, lentils and other crops near Glenside, 70 kilometres south of Saskatoon.

“Had we not got that rain when we did in July, I think we would have been looking at much lower than we are. Because we did get that rain, the crops are running well below average, but not nearly as bad as they should have been, probably.”

The Harrington family farm is on the eastern edge of one of the province’s driest regions, which stretches from Outlook to Leader in the west and Maple Creek in the southwest. Virtually all of that area received 100 millimetres or less of rain this season.

While harvest is well ahead of schedule, crop yields vary depending on moisture. According to Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan president Todd Lewis, “Water was definitely the limiting input this year.”

Those above-average yields in damper regions north of Lloydminster and along the border with Manitoba are expected to offset some “very difficult situations” in the bone-dry southwest, said Lewis, who farms near Gray, south of Regina.

In its latest crop report, the provincial government estimated crops in the province’s southwest will yield roughly one-half to twothirds of the provincial average. By comparison, estimates for the northwest are generally above average.

“If you’ve got payments and you’re short bushels, there’s going to be some tough decisions being made,” Lewis said, adding that he hopes crop insurance will let farmers whose crops “burned” off “live to fight another day.”

Overall, Saskatchewan is expected to produce an average or slightly above average crop this year — something that simply would not have happened had farmers experienced the same weather conditions 25 years ago, Lewis said.

Both he and Harrington said investment in developing new agronomic techniques and droughtresistant crop varieties has gone a long way to insulate farmers from difficult growing conditions.

The provincial government, however, is worried what effects this year’s crop-insurance payouts — the value of which won’t be known for a couple of months — will have on its bottom line.

Agriculture has been a bright spot in the provincial economy over the last couple of years, but concern over drought led two large

If we don’t get the rains this fall, things could look a whole lot different.

banks to downgrade their economic forecasts this summer.

While the province is projecting a $306-million deficit for this fiscal year, Finance Minister Donna Harpauer says the figures could fluctuate depending on factors that include this year’s harvest.

More concerns could be on the horizon, too. Harrington said trade barriers have made it increasingly difficult to market crops, while a lack of moisture in the ground could cause problems next year.

“A lot of us got rains last fall that replenished a bit of the subsoil. If we don’t get the rains this fall, things could look a whole lot different. But for right now, we’ve done very well.”