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Dry summer brings tough harvest to Rocky View County

After a long summer with little rain and blazing hot temperatures, harvest season is looking grim for agricultural producers in Rocky View County.
LN-FallHarvestPrint
After a summer of no rain and intense heat, the fall harvest ahead is set to be tough on many producers. Carmen Cundy/Rocky View Weekly

After a long, hot summer with little rain and at-times blazing temperatures, harvest season is looking grim for agricultural producers in Rocky View County.

Rocky View County’s (RVC) current reeve Daniel Henn is also a local farmer, dealing primarily in hay and grain. He said the weather that came through RVC this summer will see his yields shrink to less than half of what he gathered last year.

“The crops need water to grow – that water never came this year,” he said

“The crops are not great.”

According to Henn, like many other farmers in the region, he has already started the combining process – three weeks earlier than he normally would.

He added he is fortunate to be in the western region of the county, where there was at least a little bit of moisture, compared to the drought-like conditions on the eastern half.

“Our barley is about half of what we normally get, at best,” Henn said. “[Our] wheat crops are, I’ll say, grim – maybe 25 per cent of what they would be normally.”

Hay carries the same story for Henn, who said he received only half of what he would normally yield.

While the upcoming harvest season is looking grim compared to years past, Henn said it’s important for producers to carry on, business as usual.

“We just aren’t going to get paid, which is a big thing,” he said.

When summers are experienced like what Alberta saw this year, with prolonged heat waves seeing temperatures rise as high as the mid-30s to low 40s C with no rain for weeks on end, Henn said all producers can do is hope crop insurance pays out and hope for better luck next year.

“There is also the issue of fulfilling contracts with grain companies,” he said.

According to Henn, when weather conditions result in low yields, producers aren’t able to fulfil contracts with distributors. He added when producers have a bad year, it spreads across the entire agricultural industry, affecting equipment dealerships, trucking companies, and others in the sector.

“It affects agricultural business across the board,” he said. “Everybody who sort of depends on agriculture for a living – which is a good portion of our economy – is going to suffer a lot.”

While Henn has experienced lower yields than usual on the west side of RVC, the Irricana and Beiseker area in the northeast quadrant of the county has experienced far worse conditions, as Henn said they didn’t receive any of the moisture seen in the rest of the region.

“It is far worse up there,” he said. “I haven’t talked to many people up there, but I know a couple of guys who didn’t even take a crop off. They sold it as silage because it wasn’t worth starting a combine for.”

Henn said some producers were getting around two to three bushels per acre, when a somewhat-normal yield would carry about 20 or 30 an acre.

“It is beyond comprehension,” he said. “Twenty to 30 an acre is still terrible, but anything less is just disastrous. It is going to be a tough winter for a lot of these guys.”

As a result of the poor growing conditions, RVC joined a growing list of municipalities in Alberta on Aug. 3 by declaring an official state of agricultural disaster. The declaration allows the County to advocate for relief measures from the provincial government.

While many producers are looking to the Province for help, the Alberta government announced Aug. 6 it is working to make available $136 million under the AgriRecovery program, which is a joint initiative with the federal government to support livestock producers.

A press release stated the federal government is currently evaluating this request and announced $100 million in immediate relief for Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and Alberta. Programming costs are split 60-40 between the provincial and federal governments.

“This funding would provide much-needed financial support and immediate cash flow for Alberta’s livestock producers and beekeepers to purchase feed, water and fencing, if approved,” the release stated.

The plan with the program, according to the press release, would be to provide an immediate payment of $94 per head to help cover feed and water access costs for breeding females across the province.

“Taking a receipt-based approach, a second payment of $106 per head will be allocated later in the year, for a total of $200,” the release stated. “This will help level the playing field against a U.S. feed subsidy and maintain our livestock herds in Alberta.”

Daniel Graham, manager of insurance products with Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC), who would be the delivery agent of the initiative funding, said while funds have been approved, terms and conditions are still being worked on. He added the AFSC is targeting for applications to be ready by early September.

Like Henn, Graham said yields are expected to be “significantly lower” this harvest than yields in the last five to 10 years across the province.

“Right now, the latest estimates according to the weekly crop report on Aug. 10, I think we were at 58 per cent of the five-year average for yields,” Graham said. “That is a significant hit.”

Graham added as the entity that deals with crop insurance, AFSC is expecting a year of claims that haven’t been seen “in a long time.”



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