SWIFT CURRENT, Sask. – Farmers and ranchers in the parched southwest got help from two sources last week.
Rain fell across the region for much of the week and then June 14, Cypress Hills-Grasslands MP David Anderson announced $9 million in federal drought relief.
The money comes under the AgriRecovery label and will top up the $6 million Farm and Ranch Water Infrastructure program announced by the province in March.
The money is to be used for on-farm water supplies, community wells or emergency water supplies.
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Allan Oliver, who speaks for the South West Disaster Assistance Committee, said the money will be used. The region is entering its fourth year of drought and the recent rain hasn’t done much more than green up grass and provide annual crops with a start. There isn’t much subsoil moisture available.
“The water table is so low and the quality of water has deteriorated so bad,” Oliver said.
Fifty millimetres of rain on his farm didn’t flush a nearby creek. He said the ability to access government funds for water projects is “nice to see.
“We hope to have some sustainability,” he said.
David Marit, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, was on the committee that designed the infrastructure program.
He said many ranchers are out of water. Producers have already begun water projects even though their applications haven’t yet been approved.
The construction can be retroactive to March.
Application deadlines have been extended past the original June dates and are now Dec. 3. Projects must be completed by Nov. 1, 2009.
The program will pay up to half the cost of emergency and on-farm projects and two-thirds of a community project.
Marit said the approval committee has looked at about 400 applications so far. More than 1,000 applications have already been submitted and most of those are for on-farm water supplies of non-potable water.
Marit said there were about five applications for emergency water and more than 20 for community wells. His own RM is involved with two different community projects with other RMs.
“What you’re seeing is a lot of co-operation,” he said.
“The way the program is structured, it’s going to lever a minimum of $30 million in water projects.”
Anderson credited provincial agriculture minister Bob Bjornerud for leading the way to allow co-operation between the federal and provincial governments.
Bjornerud said the program will work because producers designed it. Adding federal money to the pot just makes it better, he said.
“It’s taken what we felt was a pretty good program and made it a great program,” he said.
The money from both governments is for one year only but Bjornerud has said he’d like to see it become part of the provincial budget and expand the program to other areas.
The federal contribution is one of the first under AgriRecovery, the new disaster relief plan.
“This is the first sign that I’ve seen that it might be a good program,” Bjornerud said.
