AlvENA, Sask. — Every Sunday from April to October, Mike Shawaga gets on the phone to talk about weather, crops and disease.
“You’re not much of a farmer if you’re not interested in that,” said Shawaga. He takes more than a passing interest, having served as a volunteer crop reporter for Sask-atchewan Agriculture for 25 years.
He and eight others were recently honored for their work with tours of the provincial crop reporting centre and a luncheon at the Legislature in Regina.
Shawaga is modest about his weekly collection of data on rainfall, soil moisture, seeded acres and chemical use. Over 25 years, he submitted 750 reports and missed only four.
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“Most of these things as a farmer, you got to know yourself anyway,” said Shawaga, his Ukrainian heritage flavoring his words. “I see it every day. I do it every day. I just put it on paper.”
The 68-year-old farmer seeds 1,300 acres of wheat, oats, barley and canola at Alvena, Sask., where he raised two children with his wife Celphie.
His grandfather settled here in 1906, but only a few cats and a large dog remain on the farm that once included a host of livestock in the barn and outbuildings.
Known in the community for his past and current involvements in the church, Lions Club, school and co-op boards, United Grain Growers and the Rural Municipality of Fish Creek’s agriculture committee, Shawaga was asked to take on crop reporting in the 1970s.
“I don’t consider it work. To me work is pitching manure for a day.”
Detailed reports from April 1 to Nov. 1 once had to be mailed to Regina, but today a toll-free number is provided for crop reporters to call in their data every Sunday.
Some are guesstimates at best, like information on seeded acreage, the availability of inputs, seeding progress and how crops are emerging.
“You meet farmers all winter long and form a general idea.”
Shawaga checks his rain gauge, slides a ruler into the snow to determine how much is on the ground or sticks a metal probe into the soil to assess moisture.
The data becomes part of a pool of information that is fed to district agrologists, the general public and media every Monday, said agrologist Terry Karwandy of Saskatchewan Agriculture.
“You get a good sense of what’s going on,” she said of the work of the 300 crop reporters in Saskatchewan.
Many, like Shawaga, have been with them for more than 20 years, although the department loses a third of its reporters annually. Prior to the mid-1970s, the data was collected by ag reps, who today scout for volunteer crop reporters in their districts. For their work, the reporters receive little other than the annual Christmas present of a calculator or a first-aid kit.
Karwandy said their information is highly valued and provides her department with “a heads up” about looming disease or insect problems.
Shawaga smiles at talk of climate change and global warming.
He cited the numerous fluctuations in weather on his farm, like the dry years of 1937, 1947 and 1961. Moisture seems to come more often in showers as opposed to general rains, he said, speculating that weather has more to do with jet streams and El Nino than greenhouse gases.
Other changes he has noticed include the reduction of summerfallow acreage, an increase in direct seeding, chemical and fertilizer use and a switch from traditional crops like wheat to lentils and peas.
Wearing a blue Co-op jacket, a Ford New Holland cap and running shoes, a humble Shawaga expressed hope that his contribution has been useful: “I’m not looked upon as some intellectual that knows everything. I’m just the same old goof as everyone else.”
