Ducks Unlimited picked a bad time to launch its winter wheat program.
The conservation group is providing growers in selected areas of the
Prairies with interest-free operating loans of $18 an acre for every
new acre of winter wheat they seed over a three-year period.
At the end of each year an agrologist sits down with farmers who signed
up for the program and determines how much money they made on their
winter wheat compared to their spring wheat.
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Farmers repay the loans if net returns are higher on their winter
wheat. If not, DU pays the loan.
Farmers at four pilot sites committed 6,000 acres of winter wheat to
the program last fall, but some of the early crop results are not
encouraging.
Mark Akins manages the program at the Weyburn, Sask., pilot site. He
said winter and spring wheat are showing similar yields, but late
August rain damaged winter wheat quality.
DU will likely pay the operating loans for most of the Weyburn growers
who signed up for the program, he added.
Program co-ordinator Paul Thoroughgood said it will be a similar
situation in other test site locations.
“In the Saskatoon area where the drought was a real problem, it will
probably cost us the full $18 per acre,” he said.
Calculations are based on the Canadian Wheat Board’s Oct. 24 Pool
Return Outlook, so it will be a while before the group has a firm grasp
on how much the program will cost.
The prospects are also less than encouraging for this year’s program,
which is being offered at eight locations – one in Manitoba, five in
Saskatchewan and two in Alberta.
At the beginning of the fall it looked as if Ducks Unlimited would meet
its goal of booking loans for 50,000 acres, but Akins said a late
harvest changed all that. He had 70 growers signed up for the two sites
he is managing at Weyburn and Redvers, Sask., but “harvest pressure”
knocked that number back to 17 growers.
To qualify for the operating loan, farmers have to seed their winter
wheat by Sept. 15 to ensure it is adequately established. That date was
too early for many growers this fall.
“In most cases people didn’t even have their (spring) crop off.”
Good soil moisture levels were the key to heightened interest in winter
cereals, but Akins said many farmers didn’t want to risk shifting from
harvest to seeding mode while a lot of their spring crop was still in
the ground.
The result is that growers who had committed about 37,500 acres to the
program in Saskatchewan only put 12,000 acres in the ground.
Those who did seed a fall crop have a great start on their winter
wheat, Akins said.
“The crops that we have in the ground that I’ve seen so far look very
good.”
DU is hoping for a good year that will offset this fall’s poor
performance. Thoroughgood said the group will be analyzing its winter
wheat program this winter to see what shape it will take in the future.
“I doubt we’ll be expanding. And whether we keep all the sites we’ve
got or not will depend (on the results).”
