Fall storms can hurt farmers’ crops and mental health
Uncertainty abounds in Manitoba despite frantic harvesting, Toban Dyck writes.
It would leave more than 150,000 homes without power, force evacuations in many First Nations communities and batter a city and a province into critical condition. On Oct. 13, Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman declared a state of emergency. Earlier that same day, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister did the same for the province.
On Monday, Oct. 7, it was sunny and 19 C. At the start of the day, I had about 120 acres of soybeans left in a field north of the city of Morden. It had received more moisture than our other land. It wasn’t ready. It was still too wet, but we were starting to hear murmurings of a system tracking toward us.
We had to try. We needed to push. This was the mindset that permeated Manitoba’s farming community. Striving to get ahead of weather systems is not new for farmers. The most diligent of us routinely — if not neurotically — check the weather using multiple apps and information sources.
Usually, a system will be predicted a week or two out. Then, as it gets closer, its severity often lessens or morphs and the once grave, crop-ending natural phenomenon amounts to little more than a drizzle.
The storm of 2019 was not like this. It came in like the lion it was predicted to be. Every farmer knew this. They knew this could be a season killer. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Manitoba’s farmers fought through fatigue and mud and worked around the clock to get their crops off, as if all of them had received the same vision of the intense storm to come.
Some farmers boasted having harvested for 30-some hours straight to get their crops off before the storm hit. Others worked until the blowing snow or driving rain forced them to quit. They all knew this one was going to be big.
We, too, did what we could. We were able to harvest a few acres, gingerly skirting around wet patches hoping against hope that we wouldn’t get stuck. On Monday afternoon, we had to throw in the towel, effectively abandoning about 100 acres of soybeans to the storm. The field was too wet. We didn’t have a choice.
On Tuesday, Oct. 8, we parked our machines indoors, put away our auger and conveyor and otherwise got our houses in order. It was, again, sunny and 19 C. It felt like summer and it felt silly to be prepping for a winter storm. In fact, because of the unusually wet fall we were having, our lawn hadn’t been so green all year.
By about 10 p.m. Thursday, the snow and wind that would continue for the next number of days had already left more than 30,000 people without power. Highway accidents were increasing and parts of the province were fast becoming impassable.
On Friday, wind gusts exceeded 80 km/h and held at about 60 km/h. Winds this powerful are unsettling. If they’re given an inch, they will take a mile. Unknown objects were hitting the side of our house and our roof. People were losing power in droves. Lines were breaking and trees were succumbing to the heavy, wet snow and gale-force winds.
The visibility out our windows was zero. The roads and highways around us were closed and remained that way long after the storm abated.
The kind of snow this storm left was an unknown quantity to the province’s road crews.
Our farmyard had snowdrifts five feet high at places and had an average snow depth of about a foot and a half to two feet.
Our power never went out, though it flickered throughout the storm. We spent much of the weekend around candlelight both in preparation for what I thought was inevitable power failure and to save our household electronics from the fatigue of switching on and off so often.
According to a Manitoba Agriculture crop report dated Oct. 15, only 30 per cent of the province’s soybean crop has been harvested, down from the three-year average of 77 per cent for this time of year. Most crops harvested in fall have a similar story. There is a push now to get them off, but there is also uncertainty over whether that will be possible.
Only 60 per cent of the potatoes have been harvested, said the report. The three-year average for this time of year is 99 per cent.
As of Oct. 18, there are still homes without power and it’s estimated that it will take more than a year to clear up this storm’s debris.
The storm hammered the province during Mental Health Week. It is important to point out that while I only have a few acres left to harvest, there are many farmers and Manitobans out there whose operations and mental health won’t be the same in the wake of a storm such as this.
It’s sunny and warm today. The snow is melting and two miles south of me a combine is harvesting corn.