About 500,000 acres of the 2016 Alberta crop remain to be harvested, according to estimates.
The low quality of grain that is being harvested has prompted Alberta’s Agriculture Financial Services Corp. to introduce a temporary Salvage Grade factor to deal with the high volume of low quality cereals.
“Clients who have sold grain at a lower price than the grade factors reflect can submit the sales receipt for consideration,” the AFSC says.
“For 2016 unharvested crop, receipts from CGC (Canadian Grain Commission) licensed and unlicensed buyers will be used, providing they are arm’s-length transactions as defined by AFSC.”
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Farmers who think their unharvested grain is not marketable but who do not have letters of rejection from potential buyers can contact AFSC for further crop assessment, the corporation said.
AFSC took steps earlier this spring to streamline its inspection process to facilitate crop insurance claims. In some circumstances it did assessments based on producer declarations without need for field inspection. In situations where the crop was deemed unharvestable or unmarketable, AFSC assessed zero yield.
The last available figures showed AFSC had paid out $33.2 million in unharvested acreage advance payments on more than 2,000 claims.
It also extended its recommended seeding dates for 2017 only, recognizing the need to get 2016 crops off before seeding could begin.
June 5 was the extended recommended seeding date for spring wheat, durum, Argentine canola, flax, mustard, oats and mixed grain.
The extended recommended seeding date for Polish canola, spring triticale, spring rye and barley is June 15.
