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Fall
2017
grainswest.com21
BY NATALIE NOBLE
WHEN ITRAINS, ITPOURS
2017CROP POTENTIAL JEOPARDIZEDBY PREVIOUS YEAR’S
UNHARVESTEDACRES
DISASTROUSLY WET CONDITIONS
and early snowfall in 2016 left many Al-
berta farmers contemplating carrying out
harvest and spring planting simultaneously.
Thirty minutes west of Barrhead, Shane
DeBock said that in mid-August roughly
eight to 18 centimetres of rain kept farm-
ers out of their fields for three weeks.
“From there on, it was a battle,” he said.
“It was muddy, and in areas of high-clay soil
it’s challenging to peel stuff off the ground.
And everything was down, lodged flat.”
In late September, as DeBock managed
to harvest 50 out of 370 acres of canola
at 15.5 per cent moisture, he and other
growers were again kept out of the fields
by moisture.
“We dried it, and then it started to
snow. After that, nobody in this area got
back into the field,” he said.
In the early days of August, 2017 did
not appear promising. Approximately a
quarter of DeBock’s acres had not been
seeded as he couldn’t get into his fields
due to rain. However, by mid-August,
the rain had let up and he was able to get
some field work done.
Daniel Graham, manager, financial
analysis, at Agriculture Financial Services
Corporation (AFSC), said the magni-
tude of the unharvested 2016 crop and
excessive spring moisture caused delays in
spring threshing. “These conditions have
caused an increase in unseeded acres for
the 2017 crop year. Over 612,000 acres
have been reported unseeded to AFSC,”
he said. “This is well above the five-year
average of 76,000 unseeded acres.”
Graham added that in anticipation
of increased pre-harvest and wildlife
inspection requests, AFSC streamlined
its inspection processes early this year,
extended the recommended seeding
dates for several crops and increased the
unseeded acreage benefit for the 2017 crop
year. For example, in some cases, com-
plete pre-harvest and wildlife assessments
were based on declarations from farm-
ers, removing the need to wait for field
inspections, and zero-yields were assessed
in situations where inspectors determined
the crop unharvestable or unmarketable.
Graham said that AFSC strives to make
its programs responsive and accountable
to stakeholders. “The production insur-
ance program responded to the unhar-
vested acres in the manner in which it was
designed to,” he said. “Over $33.6 million
in advances were issued to producers sig-
nificantly impacted by their insured acres
that remained unharvested over winter.
An additional $57 million in payments has
been paid as of early August on finalized
claims that previously reported unharvest-
ed acres in 2016.”
However, farmers and other ag profes-
sionals have expressed frustration with
lengthy assessment timelines, claim repay-
ment times and the harvesting of unusable
crops to satisfy the claims process. Alberta
crop commissions advised AFSC regular-
ly and worked with the organization to
identify and eliminate bottlenecks. While
these consultations helped streamline the
process, there are yet a number of areas
that could be improved in the future.
“Crops as old as 400 days were being
combined with no possible end use,” said
Robert Saik, founder of Agri-Trend Global
Business Development. “But in order to
make a claim, farmers were still forced to
combine and harvest these crops, putting
the 2017 crop in jeopardy in addition to
the previous year’s.”
Though his fields were assessed in
early June, DeBock was not paid out until
August 15. “I didn’t receive my advance
cheque until after I’d made my in-crop
loan payment,” he said. “I financed my-
self, pulled money out of RRSPs, whatever
I had to do to make my payments.”
In addition to the financial toll, strong
emotions come with these highly stressful
situations for farm families.
“It’s difficult to understand the stress
of trying to pull last year’s crop, dealing
with extended payment negotiations with
creditors, not having any cash available,
staring at upwards of $1,000,000 in crop
lying under the snow and the stress of
unnecessary wear and tear on your equip-
ment,” Saik said.
Still, Saik commended the ag communi-
ty for pulling together, including farmers,
banks, Farm Credit Canada and equip-
ment manufacturers. “The agriculture
community is resilient,” he said. “People
have been understanding. They know the
situation is out of the farmers’ control and
they’re willing to work with them.”
Many producers were kept out of their fields in 2016
due to excessive moisture concerns.