WASKADA, Man. — The tractor and air seeder sit idle, awaiting the arrival of spring seeding.
Nearby are rows of grain bins, most of them empty except for the seed needed to grow a crop this year.
For Clair and Gladys Howden, the empty bins are a reminder of a disastrous year in farming. They are among the farmers in western Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan who did not plant a crop last spring because water had saturated their fields.
“It’s a sick feeling having your bins empty,” said Clair, who normally seeds 2,700 acres.
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The Howdens’ experience was similar to that of many farmers whose land was flooded last spring. Heavy rains arrived in early May, turning their fields to mud. The unseeded land became overgrown with weeds, forcing them to spray and cultivate fields that would not give them a crop.
Their hopes now are pinned on getting a bountiful crop this year.
“There’s a lot riding on this year,” Clair said. “It’s going to depend all on this year.”
More than two million acres went unplanted in Manitoba and Saskatchewan because of the excess moisture. Farmers who managed to seed into the soggy soils saw poor yields and poor quality. Disease and frost took their toll.
The Agricore elevator at Waskada usually moves about 11,000 tonnes of grain each year. That dwindled to about 3,000 tonnes last year, mainly because of the flooding last spring, said elevator manager Brent Ginter.
Farmers who were flooded want Ottawa to recognize the flooding as a natural disaster. They want the kind of compensation that was given to farmers flooded in the Red River Valley three years ago.
But the federal government is refusing to cover certain losses, including weed control and loss of applied fertilizers. There is no money for forage restoration either, according to a March 29 letter the province received from Art Eggleton, federal minister of national defence and minister responsible for emergency preparedness.
“Eggleton does not seem to appreciate the situation of farm families in western Manitoba as a result of the spring flood,” said Manitoba agriculture minister Rosann Wowchuk in a news release.
“Lost input costs, as well as weed control, resulted in significant costs for many producers.”
The Manitoba government has asked that the federal cabinet review Eggleton’s decision. The province wants compensation through the federal Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements. Affected farmers could use the money to help plant a crop this year.
“We’re going into this year without any grain stocks to back up an operating loan,” said Sandy Drier, who farms with his wife Melanie near Pierson, Man.
The Driers usually seed 2,000 acres of land. Last year, they planted nothing. They harvested two quarter sections of volunteer rye and canola last year and sold alfalfa and grain left over from their 1998 crop.
The balance of their income came from the unseeded acreage program,which paid Manitoba farmers $50 per unseeded acre. Much of that went into spraying and cultivating fields to keep the weeds in check.
“We were lucky enough to have some equity in the farm,” Sandy said.
Marcel Bouchard, who farms near Fertile, Sask., already had the stone picker in his fields last week.
He farms with his father and a brother. Last year, they seeded less than a third of what they normally plant. What they harvested was feed.
The Bouchard family last year seeded part of their crop from an airplane in a desperate attempt to get some seed in the muddy fields. Earnings from cattle and his wife’s job as a teacher helped carry the family through the past year.
“If we get another two or three inches of rain we’ll be in trouble again. We’ll be in the same situation we were in last spring.”
