Farmers don’t mind seeding around a few potholes each spring, but add them together and it makes for a lot of unseeded crop this year.
Alberta farmers can claim unseeded acreage benefits under Alberta crop insurance, but only if it’s an eight-acre block and not scattered throughout the field.
Ward Toma, general manager of the Alberta Canola Producers Commission, said he doesn’t know the number of unseeded acres caused by excess water this spring, but the group’s directors are receiving calls from farmers concerned about the loss.
The commission has asked Alberta agriculture minister George Groeneveld to change crop insurance rules to allow farmers to add their unseeded acres together to claim unseeded acre benefits. They have also asked that the unseeded benefit be increased from $35 to $50 an acre.
Toma said while unseeded acreage will cost farmers money this year, the real damage will come next year.
