OUTLOOK, Sask. – After years of hopes and promises, Lake Diefenbaker’s vast water resource seems to be bearing fruit – or at least beans, potatoes and other irrigated crop development.
“It’s finally beginning to do what it’s designed to do,” said Riverhurst farmer Neil Thompson. “We’re learning more about growing the crops all the time.”
Thompson and other producers are building a computer-controlled storage facility for locally grown seed potatoes. They are also growing thousands of acres of dry beans under contract with Alberta Wheat Pool and an Idahoan grain company.
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Another Idaho-based company, Sask-Ida, is producing seed potatoes destined for Idaho producers.
In the past few years dozens of local producers have reduced their reliance on dryland cereals and moved toward irrigation. Several hog barns have also been established near the lake, where clean water is available for lagoons.
Recent field days at the Saskatchewan Irrigation Development Centre attracted producers keen to get in on the explosion of irrigation-based farming that is transforming a previously dusty part of Saskatchewan. The attention didn’t come a moment too soon for people like Gerry Gross, the manager of agronomic and research services for Sask Water.
Government bodies have been promoting and investing in irrigation for years, but until now development has been slow.
“People are starting to realize, not only in this province but in other provinces and countries, how valuable Lake Diefenbaker is,” Gross said.
While some of the most aggressive development is being undertaken by Americans, Saskatchewan farmers are getting the benefit, he said.
Most Saskatchewan farmers don’t have the knowledge or the money to jump into irrigation agriculture independently, added Thompson.
“We couldn’t do what we’re doing without them,” he said of irrigation specialists working for government agencies.
Not only are irrigated crops fundamentally different to grow, but they also require different farm equipment. That doesn’t come cheap.
Thompson and other producers have removed some of the financial burden by following a prairie tradition.
“In order to get started we co-oped ourselves, pooled our money and bought this equipment in groups.”
Each group bought enough equipment to farm about 400 acres of beans. Gross is confident a critical mass of specialists now exists in the region, and that has spurred growth.
“It is coming, because the right people are starting to line up at the door,” he said. Most American states have pushed their irrigated agriculture to the limit and some states are even reducing the amount of water they take out of depleted aquifers.
But when those same Americans look at Lake Diefenbaker, they see lots of good water, cheap land and good growing conditions.
