Saskatchewan Agriculture is looking for a few good men and women to supply weekly information to the Saskatchewan Crop Report.
Daphne Cruise, crop extension specialist with the provincial agriculture department, says the province is always looking to augment its province-wide network of volunteer crop reporters.
Volunteer reporters are required to complete a one-page questionnaire each week and submit it to the provincial agriculture department every Wednesday morning during the growing season.
The questionnaires are designed to collect information about local crop and pasture conditions, precipitation, soil moisture, crop staging, seeding and harvest progress and other issues relevant to the province’s crop and livestock producers.
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As of mid-February, there were 209 people signed up as volunteer crop reporters.
That’s a big pool of contributors, said Cruise, but it’s bit below what the province considers optimal coverage.
A total of 123 rural municipalities in the province have no reporters.
“We have some larger blocks of RMs that don’t have a reporter so if anyone is interested, we can definitely get them the information that they need,” said Cruise.
“The (provincial crop) report is only as good as the … numbers that we have reporting in.”
“The more information we have … the better the crop report gets.”
Earlier this year, Saskatchewan Agriculture produced a map showing areas of the province that are without volunteer reporters.
Regions that need volunteers include Estevan, Minton, Bengough, Avonlea, Chaplin, Hanley, Grayson, Cupar and Wakaw, among others.
Cruise said the number of volunteer reporters has remained relatively stable over the past eight to 10 years, usually in the range of 210 to 220.
However, there are large areas of the province where no data is being collected.
Volunteer numbers “are a bit lower than we’d like to see … and when we have RMs and blocks of RMs that don’t have a reporter, that essentially is a large part of the farming community that we don’t have information for,” she said.
“If we don’t have the information, we can’t report it.”
Cruise said people interested in contributing to the weekly crop report should contact the Saskatchewan Agriculture Knowledge Centre in Moose Jaw at 866-457-2377.
