Saskatchewan agriculture minister Bob Bjornerud was contemplating more measures to help producers after a tour of drought-affected regions last week.
He spent two days in west-central and northwest areas, meeting with producers and examining fields that should be lush and green by now.
“The worst is right around Rosetown and Kindersley west,” he said in a June 26 interview. “In some fields, you really have to look to see how many plants are there.”
Some fields are showing spotty growth and seeds planted weeks ago are just germinating after a recent rain. That unevenness and the late date concern producers.
Read Also
Research looks to control flea beetles with RNAi
A Vancouver agri-tech company wants to give canola growers another weapon in the never-ending battle against flea beetles.
Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp. has already implemented three changes to help those affected.
The seeding deadline for greenfeed has been extended to July 15 from June 30. Producers who participate in crop insurance can now seed and insure any cereal greenfeed crop.
The corporation has also decided that in severely affected areas more claims will be processed without field inspection to get the payments out faster.
Bjornerud said producers at meetings in Kindersley and Rosetown said they would like to let some growth come up, burn it off and still take a claim to crop insurance.
They are concerned about wind erosion and don’t expect the crop to do much. They have paid for inputs that they might be able to preserve by a burnoff.
“They’ve sunk a lot of money into these crops,” Bjornerud said. He planned to meet with crop insurance officials to see if that could be allowed. He said farmers could cut some of their crops for greenfeed, but not if they want to preserve their inputs and only if they have cattle or cattle producers nearby.
The minister also met last week with the Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association, which welcomed the ability to access wildlife land for emergency grazing.
However, cattle producers are still concerned about feed supplies if the drought continues.
Chair Jack Hextall said AgriRecovery is supposed to allow government to respond to natural disasters.
“Obviously the current drought conditions have created the need for such support,” he said in a news release.
The SCA will continue to monitor the situation, he said.
