Drought withering crops and farmers’ futures

Southern Saskatchewan sees record-setting dry summer and temperatures over 30 C

REGINA— The ground is so dry and deeply cracked on Todd Lewis’s farm in southern Saskatchewan that he says if a wrench is dropped down one of the crevasses, “we’ll never find it.”

“If you dropped a rod down there that was eight or nine feet long, you wouldn’t hit the bottom of that crack,” Lewis said. “It would disappear.”

Lewis, who is also president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, farms near Gray, south of Regina, said the region has been extremely dry.

Environment Canada figures show Regina had only 1.8 millimetres of rain last month — that’s the driest July in 130 years. It was also the driest July ever recorded in Moose Jaw, Sask., about 70 kilometres west of Regina. Moose Jaw got 4.3 millimetres of rain in July, less than the 4.6 millimetres it got in 1929. It was also hot. Regina had 11 days over 30 C in July. The city of Swift Current, Sask., about 245 kilometres west of Regina, saw 14 days over 30 C. Lewis said canola is taking the hardest hit because of the heat and might only yield half the crop of an average year.

“We’re always optimistic being in- volved in agriculture, but really we’re going to have a down year, no question,” he said.

Lewis said areas south and west of his farm are in “a pretty desperate situation.”

“A lot of cases, those fields won’t even get combined, they’re so poor,” he said.

Ranchers in southern Saskatchewan are also facing poor grazing conditions and have scaled back hay cutting because of the hot, dry weather.

Trevor Hadwen, an agro-climate specialist with Agriculture Canada, said the agency is concerned.

“We know that producers in the southern portion of the province are looking at hay shortages or feed shortages for the fall and winter,” Hadwen said.

Agriculture Canada’s latest drought monitor map for July won’t be out until next week, but Hadwen says it will show severe drought conditions in much of southern Saskatchewan, with patches of extreme drought.

It’s probably one of the fifth driest years on record for agriculture, but the situation is “nowhere near the impact of (1930) in terms of size or severity,” Hadwen said.

“What we have this year is a fairly localized, intense drought situation that some crops are doing fairly well through and some crops are suffering,” he said.

The dry conditions are also affecting water sources for cattle.

In mid-July, about 200 cattle were found dead in a pasture in southwestern Saskatchewan after they drank toxic water.

Provincial officials said hot weather caused evaporation, which left a sulphate concentration of more than 24,000 milligrams per litre in the water. Sulphate concentrations over 7,000 per litre can kill cattle.

There were 59 calls to Saskatchewan’s Farm Stress Line in July — compared to 16 the same time last year.

Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart, who farms near Pense, Sask., just west of Regina, said he’s not surprised.

Stewart said any rain at this point would probably be too little, too late for most crops.