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Harvest 2011 about to get underway
Tisdale - Wednesday, August 17, 2011

When winter linger far longer than anyone in Saskatchewan wanted there was considerable concern about the prospects for this year’s agricultural industry. The fall had been wet and only a small amount of crop land had actually been seeded in 2010 so when there was heavy load of snow out there most folks expected a repeat of last year. As we all know conditions were actually considerably worse than last year as the southeastern portion of the province seeded perhaps as little as 10% of their farmland. In the south west the moisture was fine for that desert portion of the province and they were able to get their fields seeded in excellent time. Here around Tisdale and the surrounding communities the spring runoff was a surprise, it may have been protracted but things dried up quickly and farmers in the Melfort area said that they were able to seed parts of their fields they have not been on in several years.

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The equipment was ready and this year’s seeding seemed to take only days and in a week there was that green ting appearing on the fields right on schedule. Hudson Bay, Weekes, Porcupine Plain, Carrot River, Nipawin things looked great. It was almost embarrassing because south of Rose Valley and Naicam things were a mess. In early May we attempted to go down to Kelliher and never made it, the roads were closed.

The news from Yorkton and south to the US border was very disheartening. Not this year. A Moosomin farmer told me they figure they got forty acres sowed but didn’t expect anything to grow. While south of Regina the billard table country toward Wilcox was mostly under water.

The good news is that despite the flooding and wild summer storm season there is a Canadian prairie crop to be harvested. When you drive around it seems like an even split between Canola and wheat. Certainly there is some barley in this area as there always is and we saw some great oat crops east of White Fox last week. The value of the crop in the field is remarkable. Wheat prices are high enough for once to make some farmers a profit this year and Canola, even though its input costs are really high is valuable enough pay some of the bills from the lack of income last year.

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The Federal and Provincial government programmes for the flooded areas are really only a life line to keep those portions of Manitoba and Saskatchewan able to still be in business in 2012. The subsidy adds up to about $500 million dollars according to agricultural minister Ritz and will be doled out at about $30/acre for those areas where there was no chance of planting a crop let alone collecting crop insurance.

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It’s interesting to notice that the Federal government with its majority was set to wipe out the Canadian Wheat Board which markets both wheat and barley for Western farmers. They have decided to carry out their ideological plan without consulting the farmers. There is a reason for this decision, the polls show that the majority of grain farmers do not support this plan which is not based on research or sound economic principles. Now we hear that they brakes have been put on shutting down the marketing board until they have had a chance to check out the consequences of such action. Amazing, first deciding to do something then deciding to see if that decision has financial economic merit. Let us hope they pay a little closer attention to the economy of the country. Ideology has some very finite limitations.

I noticed one farmer in the area bought three new identical tandem grain trucks, clearly he has a positive outlook toward this year’s crop but I also noticed that the Beeland Co-op’s grain bin yard still has a lot of unsold bins. Bins that were to be sold for last years crop but were not needed. Some have been moving but there are still more than half their inventory standing in their yard.

We are heading to Winnipeg on Friday and will be away from the Tisdale area for a week. By the time we get back most of the fields in the immediate area will have been harvested. In the mean time I will try to get some images from southern Manitoba.

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sunset and Harvest Valley terminal by Judy Shire