Drought conditions could drive crop insurance claims through the roof this year, but claims in at least one category are expected to fall dramatically.
Waterfowl damage has been minimal this year. Payouts for destruction caused by winged wildlife will be millions of dollars less than in the recent past thanks to an early harvest.
“The birds really haven’t been congregating yet and haven’t been moving into fields. And if they have, the fields have already been harvested,” said John Kiss, senior policy analyst with Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp.
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Saskatchewan farmers have filed only 126 waterfowl damage claims this year and the number will not likely grow much beyond that since harvest is 90 percent complete.
Last fiscal year there were 1,100 claims filed representing $2.6 million in damage.
The highest payout in Saskatchewan history was nearly $8 million paid on 2,416 claims for the 1996-97 crop year when an early snowfall left grain unharvested.
The lowest payout in recent history was $500,000 on 298 waterfowl claims during the 1998-99 crop year. Kiss said it is shaping up to be another year like that.
“I think a lot of people will be happy for that because the grain that’s out there is high quality and you’d hate to lose some high quality grain.”
But the overall picture for crop insurance is grim.
Federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief said crop insurance payouts could amount to $1.4 billion this year, topping the $750 million paid out in 1988, the last major drought year.
Saskatchewan’s program may require assistance from the provincial and federal governments to accommodate all of this year’s claims.
It’s a bleak reflection of how an excessively hot and dry summer has ravaged prairie crops.
When it comes to waterfowl damage, Kiss said three circumstances must come together for the damage to reach significant levels:
- A late harvest.
- Wet weather.
- Birds migrating south.
“We don’t have any of those things this year,” he said. “We don’t have birds, we don’t have water and we don’t have a crop left out in the field.”
It’s a similar situation in the other prairie provinces. Manitoba Crop Insurance Corp. has received about 200 waterfowl claims, down from 338 last year.
“Both our big game and waterfowl damage to cereal crops and crops in general is quite low as compared to some other years,” said Al Steinke, manager of special projects.
Crops were off the field well before birds started heading south.
“We’re just now starting to see some of the migratory birds coming through,” said Steinke Sept. 20.
Claims in Alberta are “pretty much non-existent,” said Merle Jacobson, senior manager of insurance operations with Agriculture Financial Services Corp.
So far, his office has received 200 waterfowl-related claims, compared to 600 for all of last crop year.
Jacobson reminds producers that they need to file their waterfowl claims at least three days before combining a field to give adjusters a chance to assess the damage.
