Governments adjusting crop insurance program for Alberta producers

Due to the dry conditions and as part of an effort to help the cattle industry with the lack of available feed, governments of Canada and Alberta are adjusting the crop insurance program in regards to Low Yield Allowance.

Thresholds for cereal crops have been doubled, from 150kg to 300kg, provided that the acres assessed will be then put toward livestock feed. The plan was first put in motion early July of this year, as the damage to crops due to the heat and low levels of precipitation became apparent.

“It’s almost to incentivize, you know, the grains and all seed sector, particularly the grain sector, to if they have those marginal crops, they could use it for livestock feed, and put it to that use rather than taking it to harvest,” said Daniel Graham, Manager of Insurance Products at the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC).

“The acres are assessed for yield. And if they hit the threshold, the acres that are assessed at 300 or less kilograms would be considered zero yield, provided those acres were put to a use that was used for livestock feed. And that would be like siloing, green feed or pasture in those acres. So the yield will be assessed as a zero and which would be used in calculating their final claim for that crop for this year,” said Graham.

The official number of claims for low yield have yet to come in, as these claims are not assessed fully until after harvest, which is just beginning for most farmers.

“Our normal process is once harvest is completed, the producer will file a harvest production report,” said Clarke. “It’s that filing of the harvest production report that determines whether they’re in a claim posi

tion or not. Harvest is just starting right now. Once they’re completed harvest, they will file those reports. And then we’ll we’ll once they’re filed with us, we’ll know more on the number of claims. Now, there’s other claims that we have, for example, hail. We see hail this year being the number of claims being down compared to what we see in a normal year, and that’s probably attributed to the drier, hot, drier weather that we experienced this season.”

The AFSC encourages clients to contact their local branch offices or the client service center in the coming weeks as harvest approaches, as well as to sign up for their new AFSC Connect, to submit their harvest production reports digitally and receive direct deposit for claims.

Graham expects that this year will result in higher loss payments in regards to production insurance than have been seen in some time.