Afew weeks ago in this space, I suggested that crop insurance coverage should be denied when canola is seeded into canola stubble. I requested feedback on the idea. One should be careful with such requests.
Happily, most of the e-mail notes and conversations supported the idea, and there was also feedback on ways to refine the approach.
However, other responses questioned my sanity and motivation.
Not everyone views a canola-snow-canola “rotation” as a bad idea. Some producers deny that it’s causing lower yields and a disease buildup. I was told to do proper research before making allegations.
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Well, here’s what research studies show. A seven-year study conducted by Agriculture Canada in Saskatchewan at Scott and Melfort (14 site-years) showed lower yields with continuous canola.
And even with blackleg resistant canola varieties, the incidence of disease increased as the rotations were shortened.
Scientists have long warned that shorter canola rotations increase blackleg pressure.
However, the big worry is clubroot.
It is spreading rapidly and could cost a lot of money in lost yields.
Crop rotation won’t eliminate its spread, but growing canola on canola will almost certainly make this devastating disease more difficult to combat.
It would be interesting to know how many acres in Western Canada are seeing continuous canola. Anecdotal evidence suggests a lot.
Government agencies analyzing crop insurance data should be able to estimate whether it’s half a million acres or one and a half million. My guess is that it would fall somewhere between the two.
Opposition to using crop insurance policy as a tool to discourage continuous canola is most likely to come from those using the practice. Those are the folks who gave me an earful.
The organizations representing canola producers are hesitant to suggest any such action for fear of alienating their members. Governments will be hesitant because they don’t like controversy and don’t like to appear heavy-handed.
However, clubroot won’t be a cheap problem to fix if it continues to spread. The resulting rules and regulations may ultimately be much more interventionist than a simple adjustment to crop insurance coverage.
Rather than deny crop insurance coverage altogether, it may be more palatable to make adjustments to the premiums.
As one producer pointed out, in many cases canola-on canola will represent a small portion of the farm’s total canola acreage and isn’t a regular practice.
Denying crop insurance coverage on all of a producer’s canola acres may be overkill. After all, the objective isn’t to push producers away from crop insurance participation.
Perhaps a better way to address the problem is through the premium producers are charged. A large percentage of the cost of crop insurance is borne by the two levels of government, which reduces the premium to a much more affordable level.
Government support could be removed on land seeded to canola after canola, which would effectively hike the premium. The regular subsidized premium would apply on a farm’s other canola acreage.
It would also be justifiable to decrease the yield coverage on land with continuous canola. Research indicates there is typically a yield penalty, so why not reflect that in the coverage?
There will be requests in the years ahead from farmers and their organizations to combat clubroot. Some policy-related prevention in advance may not be universally popular, but it makes sense.
