Conditions are shaping up to deliver another record year for Saskatchewan’s wild rice producers.
Low water levels and the likelihood of an early ice breakup should give producers a good start at topping last year’s record 1,800 tonne harvest, said Gerry Ivanochko, Saskatchewan Agriculture’s northern production specialist.
The record crop followed 1997’s disastrous harvest, which was a third of 1998’s. The industry desperately needed the recovery.
“Everything that could go right seemed to go right,” said Ivanochko, during a telephone interview after last week’s Saskatchewan Wild Rice Council annual meeting in La Ronge.
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Conditions were ideal, he said. The ice was off the northern lakes by the end of April, stretching out the season, which consisted of a hot, dry summer followed by a co-operative fall with no strong winds or early frosts.
Low water levels brought a number of people back into the industry as their patches came back into production. The number of producers in the province surpassed 200, after a few years of about 150 producers.
Ivanochko said the industry is growing and maturing. Smaller producers are becoming a little larger and more northerners are making wild rice farming their sole source of income.
While Saskatchewan had a banner year last year, Manitoba and Ontario fared poorly. Saskatchewan accounted for more than 80 percent of Canada’s production of wild rice; in most years the province makes up 60 to 70 percent of the national output.
Marketing the large crop has been a bit of a challenge, said Ivanochko. Canadians are facing stiff competition for the lucrative European market. American growers are aggressively peddling their paddy rice oversees. There is also growing competition from eastern European nations like Hungary, which produced 500 tonnes of wild rice last year.
Despite more competition, low inventories have kept prices relatively stable. But another record year could build up stocks.
Ivanochko said Saskatchewan’s marketing plan remains the same. The industry intends to use organic certification to differentiate Saskatchewan’s lake-grown wild rice from American paddy rice, which uses fertilizers and pesticides.
Now that a national organic standard is in place, producers will soon be able to label their products Canada Organic.
