The crop insurance benefit available to Saskatchewan farmers who have to reseed is “woefully inadequate,” says Saskatchewan Party agriculture critic Bill Boyd.
Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation pays $17 an acre for crops that haven’t established due to natural causes like this year’s drought and frost.
But Boyd said the costs of reseeding canola and flax are much higher.
“When you take into account seeding costs, the cost of actually putting the crop into the ground, perhaps a burnoff or a tillage operation and indeed fertilize … it runs up to a lot of money,” Boyd told reporters. “(Agrologists) are telling us that the rate would be somewhere between $24 and $30.”
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Agriculture minister Eric Upshall said $17 should cover the cost of seeding canola at $2 per pound and six pounds per acre, plus fuel.
“The amount wouldn’t be much more than $17,” he said. “If you included all depreciation, labor for someone to drive a tractor, you might get it up that high.”
He noted that crop insurance never pays 100 percent of losses, and he said the payout is sufficient.
“I don’t think we need to do any more right now,” he said. “We’ve done a lot to improve crop insurance. The input costs are the problem these days.”
Boyd said reseeding options for producers who grow crops like herbicide-tolerant canola are limited because they have to reseed similar high-input crops.
“The problem is there is little, if any, seed available in the system to be able to do that,” he said. “You may have situations where farmers simply will have to look at summerfallowing the crop because they don’t have any options. They’ve applied chemical, there is not that type of identity-preserved seed available any longer, they have no choice.”
A spokesperson from Upshall’s office said there are reports that flax seed may be in short supply because of increased acreage, but herbicide-tolerant canolas are available. Certified pea seed may also be short.
Crop insurance holders intending to reseed must notify their customer service office before June 20.
