Two of the three prairie provinces enhanced their pulse crop insurance programs this year.
Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp. has split lentil and chickpea coverage into three categories for each crop.
Alberta Financial Services Corp. segmented its bean coverage and introduced a chickpea program.
Manitoba Crop Insurance Corp. will likely be making changes to its bean coverage next year, but nothing is changed for 2001.
The changes will have the biggest impact in Saskatchewan where 77 percent of last year’s pulse crop was grown.
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Possibly the most significant change there is with chickpeas, a high value crop that many producers choose to insure.
Last year they protected 655,000 of the 700,000 acres seeded.
The main difference between the 2000 and 2001 chickpea programs is that there are now three categories – desis, small-seeded kabulis and large-seeded kabulis. There are also two zones for the large-seeded kabulis, with different premiums attached to each.
Three Saskatchewan chickpea growers contacted for this story generally approve of the changes, but one said the program was too late in the making and he won’t be taking out insurance.
The farmers are from the Eston, Sask., area, a high-risk region for growing the crop. Farmers there have suffered through two disasters in the past five years and are eager for a better program.
Russ Jackson has been growing chickpeas on his farm for eight years and is pleased with the 2001 program.
“I don’t think the premium is any more than what we were paying before but there’s better coverage,” said Jackson, who plans to seed 560 acres of desis and kabulis this spring.
The coverage he took out this year will give him peace of mind.
“We’re pretty dry here, it’s just one of those years. I’d just as soon be able to sleep a little sounder at night with the input costs the way they are these days.”
Jackson is also pleased with the stipulations attached to the chickpea program.
Coverage could be denied for the following reasons:
- If the crop is seeded later than May 21.
- If it is seeded more than once in four years on the same land.
- If the level of ascochyta blight infection with kabuli seed is greater than 0.3 percent or one seed per 400. A record of the test and a sample of the seed must be kept for verification.
- If a foliar fungicide isn’t applied as required during the growing season.
“That’s the way it should be,” Jackson said. “If you’re going to be in these expensive kind of exotic crops, you’ve got to really watch what you’re doing because you can lose them in a mighty big hurry.”
Don Gray, who farms nearby in Lacadena, Sask., agrees.
“I think things are progressing along the right line here,” said Gray, who plans to seed 1,000 acres of both types of chickpea.
“The previous programs were inadequate,” said Gray, referring to the years when the crop was hit hard by disease and frost.
In both cases crop insurance didn’t cover the losses.
The first time coverage fell short because there wasn’t enough data on chickpeas so adjusters based it on other crops farmers seeded that year.
“The second time there was no quality factor built into the program and again there was no payout (because) it was frost damage in 1999 that caused that one.”
Even though the 2001 program is better, Gray is going to stick with 50 percent coverage rather than 60 or 70 percent.
“The premium goes up substantially as you increase your coverage level so I generally just subscribe to the minimum level of coverage.”
Slow in coming
Gary Schweitzer was one of the first in the province to grow chickpeas. He is also an Eston-based special crops marketer and while he said the changes are good, the whole chickpea insurance program took too long to create.
Schweitzer had lobbied for chickpea insurance since he first seeded the crop 10 years ago.
“Finally they brought it in and at that point we had been without insurance for eight years. We said, ‘What the heck, we’ll just keep going without insurance.’ “
Schweitzer, who grows a lot of special crops, said at one point 80 percent of his plantings were uninsurable. Now that he is used to living with the risk, he doesn’t take out insurance even on his wheat and durum.
“The paperwork was exceeding the benefits, sort of like the AIDA program,” said Schweitzer, who is seeding 2,000 acres of kabulis this year. “Every year you’re putting in 100 hours of work on crop insurance and you weren’t getting nothing back.”
Officials at Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp. expect growers to insure one million acres of chickpeas in 2001.
In addition to changes to the chickpea program, there will be three categories of lentils this year – large green, red and other.
In Alberta, there will be separate plans for Great Northern, pinto, pink, small red and black beans, as well as new insurance plans for desi and kabuli chickpeas.
