Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.08.2010, Qupperneq 8

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8 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • 1 August 2010
Joan Eyolfson Cadham
This could be the year when, in Saskatchewan, it’s too wet for ducks.
Certainly, in the 38 Rural Mu-
nicipalities and 20 small towns
and villages where local gov-
ernments have declared disas-
ter because of heavy rain, resi-
dents have noticed that there
aren’t many baby ducks on the
sloughs and roadside marshes.
There’s not much healthy-
looking grain growing in the
fields alongside those roads,
either, even though Crop Insur-
ance extended the final date for
insured seeding to June 20. By
then, R.M.s in the north east
and east central parts of the
province had declared an agri-
cultural disaster.
About nine million Sas-
katchewan farm acres were
not planted this spring. Add
another four million acres that
were seeded then flooded out,
and that’s 18 percent of Cana-
da’s farmland that will not pro-
duce a crop this year. In large
parts of the Vatnabyggð area,
only 29 percent of seeding was
completed and some farmers
did not ever manage to get onto
the land.
Danny Thorsteinson of
Foam Lake has planted 51
crops. There has never been a
time, until this year, when he
has not been able to put one in.
“I got a third in. One third is
washed out. One third of the bal-
ance is turning
yellow from too
much moisture
and not enough
nutrients. The
rain is leaching
away everything
you gained over
the years. It’s all
going down the
creek,” he said.
“Our income
is the crop. Not
seeding is like your employer
telling you that you are not
getting any cheques this year,”
he said. But there’s an add-
ed problem for farmers. It’s
more than just not getting that
cheque. “We still have to con-
trol the weeds on the unseeded
acres. We know that land has
to be maintained and ready for
next year.”
By early June, when Sas-
katchewan’s agriculture minis-
ter was invited to fly over the
fields in the Vatnabyggð area,
he discovered the stark truth.
“There were a couple of guys
out there actually trying to do
something out in the field and
all you could see was ruts be-
hind the tractor. It just high-
lighted the effect of what all this
water is doing. I think probably
the biggest concern is it’s not
letting up,” the minister said.
He might have been carry-
ing a crystal ball. Not only did
the weather not get any bet-
ter, it got worse. In order for a
farmer to successfully plant a
crop, the soil needs an adequate
level of moisture down where
the roots are going to grow, but
those roots also need oxygen
and too much water suffocates
them. The farmer also needs
the fields dry enough that he
can safely run
very large, very
expensive equip-
ment. Following
a cold wet April,
the skies opened
in May. By June,
the average day’s
weather forecast
brought storm
warnings for
potential severe
thunderstorms
with high winds and damag-
ing hail with periodic threats of
tornadoes.
At best, the crop that is out
there is in fair condition, said
Foam Lake R.M. Reeve Chris
Gislason.
“There’s way too much
moisture. There are a lot or
acres where the crop has died
out. It looks sick.”
By July 15, Gislason’s rain
gauge had registered 20 inches
of rain. The area would nor-
mally have eight inches by mid
July. Average annual rainfall is
12 or 13 inches. “I can’t get out
with the tractor and cultivate,”
he said.
South of Foam Lake,
at the end of June, several
farmers were hit with a storm
that dumped five inches of
rain and six inches of hail in
45 minutes. “I was wading in
wettoo devilfor the
This field is not going to yield a crop this year.
If there was seed in the ground it has been drowned.
“Our income is the crop.
Not seeding is like your
employer telling you that
you are not getting any
cheques this year...”
– Danny Thorsteinson
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