Jim Reasbeck isn’t browbeating younger farmers with stories about how much worse it used to be in the old days.
The retired farmer from Dawson Creek, B.C. is lending support to arguments that this was a monumentally bad year for Peace country farmers.
“It’s one of the worst ones we’ve ever had,” said the 77-year-old man, who has farmed in the Peace since 1937. “We haven’t had any summer yet.”
While there have been other bad years, he said he has never seen so much bad luck as this year.
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It’s that exceptionally bad run of luck that convinces B.C. Grain Producers Association president Brian Haddow that Peace farmers deserve special disaster relief.
“We’re used to problems and poor weather here, but normally you don’t get the string of things that have happened to us,” said Haddow, who plans to write a letter to B.C. premier Glen Clark asking for relief.
Haddow said the year began badly with a late, wet spring. Then over the summer double the usual amount of moisture came. Through the summer there were few clear days, so crops grew slowly and many did not mature before the fall frosts.
Throughout the harvest season the overcast, rainy conditions continued, and most B.C. Peace country crops are still on the fields.
Haddow said the effect on farmers’ finances will be great. He said his own crops have dropped from an estimated value of $400,000 in the summer, to less than $200,000 now. And with most of those on the field and probably staying there for the winter, that value may drop further.
Spring harvest
But the effect will also be felt next year, he said. If half of the crops in his area have to be combined next spring, seeding will be pushed back and many producers will probably not try to plant wheat.
That will leave them with barley and canola, but since most producers have been pushing their canola rotations already, that will leave many with just barley, which has far less value to producers, he said.
Producers will also have to do a lot of field work to get the soil into seeding condition. He said many fields have long ruts caused by combines forcing their way through waterlogged fields, and almost no one has fertilized.
That means this year’s poor harvest is potentially a two-year disaster, Haddow said.
Reasbeck, who now rents his land, said he feels for younger farmers.
“It’s been a funny year,” he said. “You can’t put your finger on it, but it’s bad.”
