A survey conducted by the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan in January suggests farmers will seed at least 10 percent fewer acres this spring.
That would leave 3.4 million acres unseeded.
APAS policy manager Doug Faller said the excess moisture survey, conducted at the Crop Production Show in Saskatoon, is not considered statistically reliable because the sample wasn’t random.
The sample size included 422 responses representing 174 rural municipalities.
However, he said the results still indicate what farmers were planning, given normal moisture conditions, between January and seeding time.
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Many areas have experienced above average snowfall, the spring thaw is late and the ground was saturated last fall.Those factors could push unseeded acreage higher.
Faller said respondents also might have been optimistic when answering the survey questions and overestimated their planned acreage.
For example, when asked about 2011 intentions most said, “I hope to seed” rather than “I expect to seed.”
“Given real world conditions around weather, there is more snowfall, and forecasts are not good for March through May,” Faller said. “It’s not bleak, but it’s not encouraging either.”
The survey confirmed previous estimates of 2010 acreage. It indicated Saskatchewan farmers seeded 8.4 million, or 25 percent, fewer acres last year and harvested 10.1 million acres, or 30 percent, fewer acres than they normally would.
Faller said the survey data is some of the only information available to policy makers.
Governments have not announced a specific program in advance of possible excess moisture this year, although the province did bump up the unseeded acreage benefit through Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp. to $70 from $50.
Faller said policy makers should be asking themselves if existing programs will meet the potential need and consider last year’s impact on farm income.
“Programs (last year) to some extent didn’t truly treat it as a disaster,” he said. “A 1:1,000 year event can’t be treated as a normal income flow.”
