Manitoba and Saskatchewan are now taking applications and Alberta expects its forms to be ready as early as next week for the federal/provincial excess moisture assistance program for crop producers.
The program, flowing through the federal/provincial AgriRecovery budget, is meant to provide farmers with payments of $30 per unseeded or flooded-out acre.
In Alberta’s affected areas, about 370,000 acres of land remain unseeded, with more than a million acres seeded but then flooded and now “non-viable.” Saskatchewan reports about eight million unseeded and four million seeded but flooded-out acres. Manitoba expects almost 2,500 of its farmers are eligible for AgriRecovery payments on a combined total of about two million acres.
Read Also
Senft to step down as CEO of Seeds Canada
Barry Senft, the founding CEO of the five-year-old Seeds Canada organization is stepping down as of January 2026.
Saskatchewan
In Saskatchewan, the $30 per eligible acre payment will be available to all producers who could not get their land seeded by June 20 or had crop flooded on or before July 31.
Acres of hayland, forage crops, perennial crops and pasture are not eligible, a Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp. spokesperson said Friday.
SCIC customers won’t have to apply for this support unless they have established crops that were flooded between June 20 and July 31. If so, and those acres were not included in a previously registered claim with SCIC, then an excess moisture program application will need to be completed for those added flooded acres.
Producers not enrolled with SCIC will have to fill out an application form, available online and through SCIC offices, local ag ministry offices and RM offices.
Saskatchewan’s application deadline for the program will be Sept. 30, 2010, but the province said it expects to start distributing funding to producers in August.
Adjusters may have to verify acres that were too wet to seed or had crop lost because of flooding. There will be no deductibles in the Saskatchewan program, but to make sure its program compensates only for acres that are normally seeded, SCIC will take a producer’s seeding intensity into account.
“Seeding intensity” captures the customer’s average percentage of land seeded for the previous two years. For program applicants not enrolled at SCIC, the agency will ask for information to confirm a farm’s seeding intensity for the past two years.
The province’s NDP opposition on Friday ripped the provincial government for “completely ignoring the needs of livestock producers and fruit and vegetable producers by excluding them altogether from relief funding,” and called again for the per-acre excess moisture payments to be raised to $100.
Manitoba
The Manitoba version of the program defines “flooded-out” acres are those that have been destroyed by flooding to the extent the value of the remaining crop is less than the cost of harvesting it.
Application forms for Manitoba farmers not already enrolled in the AgriInsurance crop insurance plan will be available at Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp. (MASC) and provincial ag department offices and online. MASC’s application postmark deadline is Aug. 3.
Manitoba growers insured under AgriInsurance will automatically be paid for eligible unseeded acres. A pre-printed application for flooded-out acres will be sent to all producers to allow them to declare their acres that were seeded and subsequently destroyed by flooding.
The Manitoba government said its program applies to cultivated crop lands. A program deductible will apply.
Established hayland, forage, pasture, shrub, wooded and perennial crop acres are not eligible, the province said.
“Impacts of excessive rainfall on pasture and hay lands are being closely monitored,” provincial Ag Minister Stan Struthers said in a release Thursday.
“Our hay listing program will be an important asset for Manitoba’s livestock producers, but I have asked officials to let me know if access to feed becomes a significant problem.”
Alberta
Alberta’s application form, meanwhile, “is ready to go and is awaiting input from our federal counterparts,” Alberta Ag Minister Jack Hayden said in a release Tuesday.
“As soon as it is finalized we will post it online, mail it out to producers and make it available at all Agriculture Financial Services Corp. (AFSC) offices. We expect that to be as early as next week.”
