The Alberta government will pay its farmers $10.3 million as they try
to control grasshoppers in a year with extremely high infestations
expected.
“We are trying to encourage control,” said John Knapp, director of the
rural services division of Alberta Agriculture.
Under the grasshopper control program, the government will pay farmers
$4 an acre, which is about one-third the cost of the chemical and the
equipment to apply it.
The government estimates farmers will have to spray at least 21/2
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million acres this year to control the ever increasing number of
grasshoppers in the province. Last year only 400,000 acres required
grasshopper control.
Forecasters anticipate grasshoppers will be widespread across the
province because of the mild winter. The late snowfalls in Alberta did
little to control the population, said Knapp. Grasshoppers will not
begin to hatch until the end of May. Cold weather at that time could
wipe out legions of the pests.
The government has also recognized chemical control doesn’t fit every
farm in the province so it will also help offset the cost of cultural
or biological control of grasshoppers.
If a farmer doesn’t want to spray his field, the government will pay
for a wide cultivated area around the field in an attempt to stop the
migration of grasshoppers.
In orchards or market gardens, the government will accept the use of
chickens or other biological controls of grasshoppers.
In Manitoba, grasshoppers are not expected to be a severe problem, said
John Gavloski, a provincial entomologist.
“The risk decreases as you move east across the Prairies,” he said.
Manitoba will continue its long-standing program to subsidize the cost
of spray to rural municipalities that want to control grasshoppers in
ditches and on public land. Spraying ditches and roadsides before the
hoppers move into the field is an economical way to control
grasshoppers, said Gavloski.
The Saskatchewan government has taken a wait and see attitude with
grasshoppers, said Scott Hartley.
“Every year there’s been grasshopper problems in some part of the
province.”
Early forecasts anticipate areas in southwestern Saskatchewan will have
high grasshopper populations, but numbers in other areas are expected
to be lower than previous years.
