DELISLE, Sask. – Bob Bentley methodically pulls apart the yellow plant in his hands.
“Twelve peas,” he says with disgust. “Twelve peas from this whole plant.”
The crop should be twice as high and the plants should have three or four times more pods. Each pod should contain five or six peas, not two or three.
“This crop will probably yield 10 bushels an acre,” Bentley said. “We’re used to 50 bu. an acre.
“I’ve been farming for 35 years and I don’t think we’ve ever had a crop like this.”
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
The Delisle area southwest of Saskatoon is in the drought region that runs across the central Saskatchewan grain belt and through southern Alberta.
Bentley said about 40 millimetres of rain has fallen since May 1, which is about 40 percent of normal precipitation amounts. And it came in five or six showers, sometimes just 2.5 mm at a time.
On July 18, when federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief is coming to visit, it showers again.
By the time the minister arrives, the sky has cleared and the hot sun begins another assault on crops and pastures.
Vanclief, provincial agriculture minister Clay Serby, farm leaders and officials spent four hours assessing the situation, arriving at Bentley’s farm at the end of their tour.
“I certainly saw crops today that aren’t there,” Vanclief told reporters.
But he also said there were “incredible contrasts” between fields that are side by side and that some crops appeared to be reasonable.
“We saw crops that it was easy to assume that they were following summerfallow,” Vanclief observed.
“If you have limited moisture … (seeding into) summerfallow apparently helps.”
Reminded that soil would blow away in a year this dry, the minister later said he wasn’t suggesting farmers should leave land fallow as a management practice, but that they need to change the way they manage water.
Vanclief also repeated his message that farmers need to use existing safety net programs like crop insurance and the Net Income Stabilization Account.
He said only 62 percent of the acreage and 65 percent of producers are enrolled in Saskatchewan crop insurance.
“For 27 cents an acre a farmer can have 50 percent coverage,” he said. “I think it would be worth having.”
Bentley said his crop insurance will pay him about $50 an acre; his inputs totaled about $100.
“I’m involved in crop insurance. I’m involved in NISA. But those programs have to be upgraded to the point where they are beneficial,” he said. “We rely on safety nets to make up the difference. They’re certainly not going to this year.”
Vanclief said he was not prepared to make an announcement of financial assistance. He wants to measure the effectiveness of the current safety nets first.
“Governments never close the door entirely, but I don’t want to stand here today and build false hope.”
