Sharon Stegemann doesn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but she said the $10 per unseeded acre offered to Saskatchewan farmers last week deals with only a small part of the problem.
“It’s definitely going to help for the flooding this spring,” she said from her farm near Porcupine Plain. “But the government still hasn’t dealt with our flooding and the disaster we had last fall.”
The province announced July 20 in Tisdale that it would provide an unseeded acreage benefit to farmers who didn’t seed their crop because of wet conditions. Most of the estimated 1.8 million eligible acres are in the northeast.
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Some farmers could receive as much as $75 per acre, said agriculture minister Mark Wartman, because crop insurance provides an unseeded acreage benefit of $50 per acre and the federal government has offered $15 per acre.
Stegemann said farmers won’t actually receive that much because they have to pay a crop insurance deductible and face deductions based on seeding intensities and eligible acres.
For example, seeding intensity is determined by dividing the number of acres seeded by acres cultivated to get an average per year for each of 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. Then, the average of those four years is calculated to determine average intensity.
Similarly, there are calculations for eligible acres.
Wartman gave an example of a farmer with 1,000 acres who normally seeds 850 but was only able to plant 600 this year. The 850 acres are multiplied by 95 percent, to include the five-percent deductible, for a total of 808 acres. Subtract the 600 acres that were planted and that leaves a claim on 208 acres, for a payment of $2,080.
“You have to know the ins and outs,” Stegemann said.
There is also concern that the federal government will claw back its share of crop insurance payments to cover spring cash advances that many took to plant this spring’s crop, but Wartman said the provincial money is in place no matter what.
“There will be no clawbacks, no assignments on this funding,” he said.
In addition to the $18 million the province will spend on the program, premier Lorne Calvert and Wartman also announced an extra $100,000 for the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority to clear waterways plugged by beaver dams and debris from the flooding.
The provincial disaster assistance program is also in place to help municipalities and private landowners repair infrastructure.
Stegemann’s family has more than 6,000 unseeded acres and she said she is grateful for the help offered from all sides. However, she still thinks governments should have provided help following the disastrous harvest of 2005.
Provincial money is expected to be flowing by the end of August. Producers enrolled in crop insurance must authorize the corporation to release information needed to calculate payments to the provincial agriculture department. Those who aren’t in the program have until Oct. 4 to submit an application form.
