In 1904, agricultural journalist Cora Hind hired a horse and buggy and
crossed the Prairies to survey the upcoming crop.
American speculators had declared rust would devastate Canadian wheat
crops, leaving only a 35 million bushel crop. Hind disputed the numbers
and set out to prove them wrong.
Driving from dawn to dusk along rough tracks, inspecting prairie
fields, she concluded the West would have a 55 million bu. crop. When
the crop was harvested, the official count was 54 million bu.
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Only twice in the next 29 years was Hind unable to make an accurate
prairie forecast – in 1912 because of too much rain and in 1926 because
of an appendicitis attack.
Almost 100 years later, farmers and government officials still rely on
up-to-date crop reports to give them a sense of where they fit in the
increasingly large agricultural picture.
But prairie crop reports are getting increasingly hard to find.
At one time, each prairie wheat pool provided weekly crop reports for
farmers and for internal use. With the amalgamation of Manitoba and
Alberta pools into Agricore three years ago, and its merger with United
Grain Growers last year, crop reports are no longer offered.
“The decision this year was made not to continue with the Agricore one.
It’s simply an issue of resources and priorities,” said Tracy Bryksa,
communications co-ordinator with Agricore United.
“Unfortunately, it leaves a lot of people looking for information,
especially in Alberta,” she said about the elimination of AU’s crop
report and the Alberta government’s move to a monthly report.
Bryksa said the Agricore department that generated the report no longer
exists, and UGG historically never had crop reports.
Colleen Vancha of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool’s investor relations and
communications department couldn’t remember when the company eliminated
crop reports. Possibly two years ago or as long ago as eight years were
her best guesses.
Like Agricore, Sask Pool’s research department, which produced the
reports, no longer exists.
Besides, Vancha said, the pool’s crop report was simply a “repetition”
of the Saskatchewan government’s crop report.
With the help of hundreds of volunteer crop reporters across the
province, the Saskatchewan government has produced a weekly crop report
for 27 years.
At last count, 286 crop reporters keep track of daily precipitation
from April to the end of harvest and answer weekly questionnaires about
farming in their rural municipality.
“We’ve found it a reasonably cost effective way of getting some really
good information,” said Terry Karwandy, the agrologist at Saskatchewan
Agriculture in charge of crop reports.
“It seems to be a good system.”
The crop reporters answer questions about topsoil moisture, seeding
progress, crop development and whatever issue happens that week.
Reporters can also add remarks about local conditions not mentioned in
the questionnaire.
“What we find is it’s just really good internal information,” she
said.”It’s a bit of a heads up for everybody in here to be on top of a
problem or at least be aware of the problem.”
Each week a memo produced from the crop report is sent to cabinet to
give it an update of agriculture in the province.
Rosann Wowchuk, Manitoba’s agriculture minister, said her department’s
weekly crop reports offer a good way of tracking crops, trends or
emerging problems.
“We certainly expect to continue this service because it’s a very
valuable piece of information for our producers,” she said.
The reports are a good way of anticipating problems in crops.
“It’s important for us.”
In Alberta, where the focus is moving away from production information
and toward helping farmers add value to crops, the government will move
from weekly to monthly crop reports.
“We’re trying to cut down on roles that we felt are no longer needed,”
said Don Young, Alberta Agriculture’s chair of strategic change.
With the shift to more emphasis on value-added, the department felt
there was no longer a need for the weekly crop reports, he said.
“That’s a decision we’ve taken.”
Using remaining staff, local agriculture fieldmen and crop insurance
staff, crop information will still be forwarded to Agriculture Canada’s
biweekly national crop report.
