Saskatchewan farmers trying to outlast Mother Nature

In parts of central Saskatchewan, there are fields as far as you can see from the highway, with rows and rows of swaths hunkered down underneath snow and ice — which means all kinds of farmers are still waiting to get their crops in the bin.

Kent Dubreuil is one of those farmers. He farms southwest of Biggar, and he says a lot of people in that area, like him, are still in the fields.

“In the back of my mind, I know that any day we could get that killer six inches of snow that doesn’t go away and we’re done for the season,” said Dubreuil.

He said he’s prepared to leave crop in the field for the winter, but he’s stubborn. If he can combine on Christmas day to get it off, then he will.

On Friday, Dubreuil said he still had about 250 acres to go after already having brought in about 1,800 acres of crop.

He explained that it’s not just harvest that has been the problem. The growing season got off to a slow start with dry weather, so the crop took a while to mature, meaning he couldn’t start harvest until later. Then the weather for harvesting didn’t co-operate.

“We really didn’t have a stretch of a week or two weeks of good hot, dry, consistent weather,” he said. “We would get a little shower that would go through, we would get two days of nice weather, and then on the third day you’d start clouding up and you’d get another little shower or mist.”

Dubreuil said he finished off his durum on Thursday but he probably wouldn’t be able to try combining the canola until Saturday. Last time he tried was a month before, and Dubreuil said it had been swathed for a month already at that time.

He said he has been at this long enough that he knows sometimes harvest gets done and sometimes it doesn’t.

“It is frustrating — I’d like to get harvest done, clean the combines and put them away and have that done so that I don’t have to worry about it throughout the rest of the winter or come spring,” he said. “But last year at this time I’d had a heart attack and was dead on the floor so I’m doing really well today, so really, is this bothering me? No, bigger fish to fry normally.”

Dubreuil said the yield has been pretty good, and the quality has been good for his barley and durum although the canola will be a challenge.

Farm stress

Dubreuil said he’s worried about the agriculture industry across the prairies.

“It is, from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, that has really been stressed and punished this year with tough growing conditions — whether it’s drought or excessive moisture,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of stressed people, whether they be farmers, spouses, children, crop suppliers — the stress level is very, very high for many people.”

He explained the growing season is one thing, but there are also problems with shrinking markets for their crops and shrinking prices. He said he used to get between $9 and $12 for a bushel of yellow peas, and now he’s getting $6.25.

Dubreuil said the federal government needs to do a better job of opening markets back up, and he said the CN rail strike happening is not helpful at all.