Farmers in the Interlake region of Manitoba are doing whatever it takes to harvest their flooded crops, even if it means spending $150,000 on tracked equipment.
On Aug. 21 and 22, more than 100 millimetres of rain fell on the cropland surrounding Arborg, 100 kilometres north of Winnipeg. The downpour soaked fields already saturated by a wet summer, making it nearly impossible for local producers to get on their land.
Darvin Firman, who farms with his brother, Andy, north of Arborg, said farmers in the region are doing whatever it takes to get on the land and get the crop off.
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“I know of at least five guys who have gone to the States and spent probably $150,000 to $250,000 on tracked combines,” he said.
The Firman brothers, who have 1,500 acres of canola, oats and barley, didn’t spend that kind of money. But they did travel to Saskatchewan twice last week to buy equipment. They bought a bi-directional tractor with a swather header north of Saskatoon, and a four-wheel drive combine east of Regina.
“We got really lucky to find it (the swather). We’ve had it working the last two days. It goes right through anything. You can’t stop it,” said Firman Aug. 29.
They are still waiting for the used combine to arrive, which Firman said, “is decked out for the mud.
“We’re making the best of a bad situation, trying to get our crop off before it deteriorates any further,” he said.
Dave Shott, a producer west of Arborg, said his situation is not as bad as others, but 40 percent of his cropland is essentially a swamp.
“We are cutting canola and can make it through most of the fields,” he said. “(But) we’ve got 800 acres of canola that basically we’re just leaving stand …. It’s just too wet and no bottom. It’s just soup.”
If it does dry up, Shott said he will straight combine those acres in an attempt to “salvage something.”
According to Environment Canada data from the Arborg weather station, 275 mm of rain fell from July 1 to Aug. 25, doubling the rainfall of a typical summer in the region.
For Shott, the late August rain put an ugly cap on what has been a poor growing season.
“I don’t have three feet of water on my fields, but the damage was done before. There’s not much for crop anyways,” he said. “I don’t like whining … but it’s been horrible for us up here.”
