ASSINIBOIA, Sask. – Doreen Holden’s family is not going to seed their 8,000 acres this year.
The president of the Saskatchewan Women’s Institutes farms at Fertile, Sask., straddling the Manitoba border. That’s in the middle of the flood zone stretching this spring over parts of two provinces.
Their farm got 250 millimetres of rain in May alone.
“We might have 400 acres of winter wheat we put in last fall.”
They normally grow wheat, durum, barley, flax, canola and mustard, plus have a 100-head cow-calf operation and 1,000 hogs.
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“We’re flat land, there’s no creek to drain it away. The water will sit there until it evaporates.”
Last year was wet enough for Holden, her husband and two sons and her brother-in-law who farm together.
“We buried the combine Oct. 20. It took two 400 horsepower tractors to get it out.”
In an interview Holden said there are few options for flooded farmers. The government’s aid forms require complex figuring and there is no guarantee of getting money. One son had to empty his Net Income Stabilization Account and crop insurance won’t pay if no crop is put in.
“You can drive into our farmyard and we look prosperous. There’s two combines and three big tractors but it belongs to the bank. … You cannot get a return on investment.”
The peril of farming is one issue Holden would like to deal with in her three-year term as SWI president. Another is the need to get more members. She links the two problems because rural women are too busy to join since they must work at off-farm jobs. A third theme of her term will be the WI’s literacy project.
Last year the SWI received $21,000 in various grants from the provincial government. That and membership dues at $6,500 are the biggest sources for the group’s 1999 income of $34,020.
The new president-elect of SWI is Virginia Kreklevich of Foam Lake. She was unopposed in taking the term, which ties her to the executive for nine years as she works through three years as president-elect, three years as president and three years as past-president, which in Saskatchewan means she will represent the group on the national WI board from 2005-2008.
Kreklevich said she made the commitment because “I enjoy WI and always said I’d do more when my children were older. If I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it.”
