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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Farmers hit by rain face latest foe -- frost

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 09/21/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

SOME Prairie farmers struggling to get their crops off water-logged fields are facing an additional challenge -- frost.

Temperatures across the Prairies fell on the weekend, dipping to a chilly -4.4 C in Edmonton, -4 C in Regina and -1.5 in Brandon, Man. That brought a killing frost to immature crops, which are behind schedule because rain and flooding delayed seeding.

"I think the challenges across the Prairies are pretty much the same -- it's very wet and it's very cold," said Ward Toma, general manager of the Alberta Canola Producers Commission.

Problems started for many Prairie farmers in the spring when record rainfall left many fields too wet to seed. Some fields were completely washed out, looking more like small ponds. The Canadian Wheat Board estimated that 4.2 million hectares of land weren't planted and another one million was ruined shortly after seeding.

Toma said the canola crops were looking "fairly well," but they were late.

"So the frost that hit this past week is going to knock some money off the table for almost everybody that had crop in the field," Toma said in a phone interview from his Edmonton office.

A Canadian Wheat Board official said Manitoba is still better off than its two Prairie neighbours, with the overall harvest here about 60 per cent complete compared to the usual 80 per cent for this time of the year.

BMO Capital Markets said in early August that the flooding could end up costing the farming industry as much as $3 billion.

In Portage la Prairie, Man., farmer Ian Wishart said Monday that the harvest is moving very slowly and "now anything that comes off is a battle to get off." That's because many fields are too wet to support the weight of equipment, which often ends up getting stuck, he said.

"All kinds of things have been stuck and pulled out. I talked to a guy the other day who had his potato harvester stuck so badly he had to have two track hoes in and dig it out," said Wishart, who is also president of the Keystone Agricultural Producers.

"That's pretty ugly stuff when you're down to that."

The situation is even worse in Saskatchewan, which was hardest hit by floods this spring and summer. Just 14 per cent of the crop has been harvested in the province -- far below the five-year provincial average of 51 per cent.

-- The Canadian Press, with staff files

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 21, 2010 B5

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