Saskatchewan Crop Insurance is anticipating a flurry of activity as farmers across the province continue to register claims on hundreds of thousands of acres that were too wet to seed this spring.
Shawn Jaques, manager of customer service with Saskatchewan Crop Insurance, said adjusters in the east-central and northeastern regions of the province are anticipating an unusually high number of unseeded acreage claims this year.
Offices in Preeceville, Humboldt and Tisdale will be particularly busy, he said.
Last week, grain industry analysts began making preliminary estimates on how much farmland will go unseeded this year due to excess moisture.
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Saskatoon grain brokerage firm CGF Brokerage and Consulting suggested Saskatchewan farmers would seed 1.5 to two million fewer acres than expected.
The Canadian Wheat Board suggested total acreage in northeastern Saskatchewan alone would be down by one million acres.
If those estimates are accurate, claims for unseeded acreage could cost the provincial crop insurance program as much as $70 million.
Crop insurance pays $50 on each acre of land that qualifies for coverage.
In 2005, the program paid out roughly $14 million on 280,000 acres of unseeded land. In 2004, total payouts amounted to $31 million on 620,000 acres.
Under the unseeded acreage program, not every acre of unseeded land is eligible for a $50 payment. To calculate how many acres qualify, crop insurance uses a formula that considers a farmer’s average seeded acreage as well as his insurance history.
According to Jaques, about 70 percent of the province’s total seeded acreage is insured each year.
Farmers with no crop insurance history are ineligible.
The deadline for registering unseeded acreage claims is June 25.
Adjusters are expected to review claims over the next few weeks and producers should receive payments before September, depending on the number of claims received.
For more information on unseeded acreage coverage, call the crop insurance program’s toll-free number at 888-935-0000 or visit the website at www.saskcropinsurance.com/programs/2006/Coverage/unseeded_
acreage.shtml.
