Prairie farmers say it may be too late for crops

There have been just five days of noticeable rain in Parkland Country since the beginning of April.

The farming region just west of Edmonton is among the hardest hit of parched Prairie communities.

Crops have withered on the ground. Grass for grazing cattle is scarce. Bales of hay that fetched $45 last year are selling for $250.

“They’re talking this is the worst drought we’ve seen in five decades,” says James Leskiw, supervisor of agriculture and agronomics for the county.

Council members in Parkland declared a state of agricultural emergency on Tuesday. The region has seen just 53 millimetres of rain since April. Normally, they would get 150-220 millimetres.

“There’s concerns now about not having enough feed to feed livestock through winter. They haven’t produced as much as they normally would in this point in the season,” Leskiw tells Yahoo Canada News.

Even if the heavens open up today, “they’re at the stage that things are not going to get better.”

In Parkland, grasshoppers are exacerbating the situation.

In eastern Saskatchewan, where Dale Leftwich grows 800 hectares of canola, flea beetles and frost have filled in where drought left off.

“The crop is really suffering across the province for a host of reasons,” says Leftwich, who farms near Esterhazy close to the Manitoba border.

Some areas in the southwest of the province really haven’t received any rain all spring, he says. Saskatoon and west towards Alberta is another region really suffering.

“We haven’t had a really good general rain like we usually do out here at all. Thunderstorms roll through. Somebody gets some rain but many people haven’t received any rain at all,” Leftwich tells Yahoo Canada News.

Agriculture Canada statistics show some areas have received less than 40 per cent of their normal rainfall.

On Twitter, farmers lament with the hashtag #drought15.

“Neighbour did a little field of hay today last year 43 bales this year 4 bales it’s dry!” writes Laramie ‏@EybenFarms .

“Hay is down. Hoping for 50 bales. Normal yield is 250,” says bob anderson ‏@bob_robtcand

Environment Canada says there have been some scattered thundershowers in recent days and the weather pattern that’s pushed Prairie rain east for the past couple of months appears to have lifted.

“But we’ve been fooled by that before,” says Leftwich, secretary of the Canadian Canola Growers Association and chair of the Saskatchewan Canola Growers.

Some cattle producers have already culled their herds because of the lack of feed supply.

Farm Credit Canada, the largest provider of financing and insurance to agricultural producers in Canada, announced this week that they will allow deferral of payments to ease the financial pressure on producers hit by drought.

“These kinds of extreme dry conditions, in some cases for the second year in a row, can cause financial challenges for farm operations — not to mention personal hardship and stress,” president Michael Hoffort says in a statement. “People need support and as a leader in financing to Canadian farmers, we have a unique responsibility to step up and help.”

But deferring payments isn’t enough, says Leftwich. No government or bank programs can make up for the loss, he says.

“You’ve worked hard. We’ve had four or five really good years, you get things kind of in a manageable position and a year like this just sets you back to square one,” he says.

Hans Schreier, a professor of watershed management at the University of British Columbia, says farmers and the rest of the public should get used to it.

“We have made a big mistake. We’ve told everybody that it’s going to get two to three degrees warmer but if you walk out of your house and there’s a two-degree difference, you won’t even notice it,” he says.

“We should have told the public that this is going to be the new norm. We’re going to have more extremes at both ends… and we’re not prepared for these extremes.”

Even if Mother Nature makes nice, for many farmers it’s too late, Leftwich says.

“The damage has been done,” he says. “You might see some recovery but there’s a lot of places where it’s really too late.”