Disastrous is the word Mel Annand uses to describe his Creekside Orchard apple and cherry orchard near Melfort, Sask.
The president of the Saskatchewan Fruit Growers Association said this year marked the first time he had widespread loss in his six-year-old orchard.
“We got almost three feet of rain in the Melfort area and that was piled on top of a late spring and a tough winter. I had significant death loss in trees.”
This year’s flood damage to fruit crops in Saskatchewan is still widely unknown. Lack of data is hampering efforts by fruit producers to protect themselves from production losses through programs like crop insurance.
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Bruce Hill, president of the Canadian Cherry Producers Inc., said Statistics Canada has no programs in place to look at fruit production on the Prairies.
“We can’t really go with too many what ifs. We need hard data and that’s a problem for us to collect right now.”
Hill said fruit growers don’t qualify under grain programs and have not been able to obtain crop insurance in Saskatchewan.
Producers have not been able to show the crop insurance corporations sufficient production data, said Annand. He estimated losses of 50 percent for his apple operation and 90 percent for cherries from a combination of a wet spring, poor pollination and fungal diseases.
Saskatoon berries were also hit hard, he said.
“With saskatoons, we’re concerned about next year’s production. To replace plants and get them back in production, it’s probably five to seven years.”
Hill said vegetable production has also taken a hit.
“Vegetable producers got a double whammy with blight. Potatoes and tomatoes in particular are susceptible to the same blight,” he said.
Hill points out that producers need business risk management tools that work for them.
