Add physical distancing requirements and a late spring melt to the mix and we’re all looking at an unusual and potentially stressful spring planting season.

Some good news, of sorts, for farmers: our government has declared us an essential service! It only took a global disaster to receive the recognition for which we have yearned lo, these many years.

Like the spring run-off, customers have started to trickle through my yard. I wish the snow and the seed were moving faster, but there tends to be a pretty strong correlation between how early the fields bare off and how early my bins empty.

Like most farmers, Jody Wacowich’s parents made efforts to be safe at their Redwater cow-calf operation. But when she was growing up on the family farm in the ’80s and ’90s, the safety culture of the day didn’t go above and beyond. She saw her share of preventable accidents and understood the difficulty in convincing those set in their ways that there was room for improvement.

Consumers still question whether or not to eat wheat. Some are increasingly more confused and even scared about the consumption of wheat. The gluten-free trend continues to subside, but low-carb diets are undergoing a resurgence.

Canada’s agriculture sector waited with bated breath for the outcome of the federal–provincial–territorial agriculture ministers meeting held this past December in Ottawa. The highly anticipated meeting was announced in July when the ministers made a collective commitment to examine potential improvements to the business risk management (BRM) suite of programs before the end of the calendar year.

In this 1958 photo, Robert Black is obviously pleased with the water flow on the Golden Valley Irrigation Farm, which he co-owned near Medicine Hat. And with good reason.

With early snowfalls having impacted harvests in recent years, the time couldn’t be better for Dean Spaner’s wheat breeding program to hit its stride. A University of Alberta professor and plant breeder, Spaner focuses on bringing high-yielding but early-maturing wheat varieties to market. It’s a natural fit for the northernmost wheat breeding program on the continent.

Our industry has embraced every tool available in communicating our messages to those outside the agri-food sector. Social media channels such as Twitter give farmers a direct line to global consumers. One remarkable messaging success saw the United Nations declare 2016 the International Year of Pulses. Canada was a leader in advocating for this.

No one ever said farming was going to be easy. Every crop year has its obstacles, and in 2019/20, the biggest challenge is that a significant portion of the crop was left to overwinter. This is estimated to be between five and 15 per cent of total western Canadian acres. Farm economics dictate that every acre that can be harvested should be harvested to ensure financial wellbeing. Assuming that all unharvested acres will be harvested, here are some things to keep in mind.