PONTEIX, Sask. – Rural municipalities in southwestern Saskatchewan are declaring themselves disaster areas after two consecutive years of drought and out-of-control gopher populations.
While attention earlier this growing season focused on Saskatchewan’s flooded northeast, farmers and ranchers in the opposite corner of the province could only hope for a fraction of that moisture to come their way.
It didn’t.
Now they want government assistance similar to that available to farmers who weren’t able to seed: $10 per acre from the province; $15 per acre from Ottawa and a $50 benefit from crop insurance.
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A meeting with provincial agriculture minister Mark Wartman was scheduled for Sept. 11. A spokesperson for the minister said he was prepared to listen to their concerns.
There were no further details at presstime.
Allan Oliver, reeve of the RM of Auvergne, said conditions are unusual this year because crop yields are light and quality is poor. Usually, he said, only one or the other occurs. However, the heat came so early this year that it caused both problems.
Oliver said he took a crop sample to an elevator and was told it was frost damaged. In fact, the shriveled kernels are the result of 35 to 37 C temperatures in May and strong winds that dried blossoms and pushed crops to early maturity, he added.
Farmers were combining field peas as early as July 19, and there are reports of lentils yielding one or two bushels per acre.
Gophers have helped themselves to whatever the drought left behind.
“This is a serious situation,” Oliver said. “We want fairness.”
Unlike northeastern farmers who couldn’t seed at all, farmers in the southwest had the huge expense of seeding their crops, said Hassen Hattum, who ranches near Cadillac.
“There has to be some fairness to it,” he added, in reference to government assistance.
Pastures and hay fields are also affected. Production is poor and gophers like to eat forage, too. Hattum said he baled for eight hours one day and ended up with 70 round bales.
“There’s absolutely nothing there.”
Some ranchers have been feeding their cattle since spring because pastures were not producing, said Doug Davidson, who farms and ranches south of Ponteix. They are also hauling water because creeks and other water sources have dried up.
Spring calves have been weaned early and Davidson turned cows into a wheat field in mid-July because the crop wasn’t worth much and he needed the feed.
While Oliver is demanding the same treatment given to flooded farmers, he said they shouldn’t have to go to government each time something like this happens.
“There should be a disaster program that kicks in automatically.”
Davidson agreed. He said low commodity prices are always tough to take, but “it’s the drought that’s hammered us right into the dirt. We’re going after just a blood transfusion.”
After that is provided, he added, farmers need to get a workable farm program in place.
“We need to know the bottom line.”
