Farmers across southeastern Manitoba are worried this year, and they’re not alone. Drought conditions all across the province, and even throughout western Canada, have produced a somewhat bleak outlook for this year’s crop.
The situation is no different for farmers close to home.
Marcus Loeppky has been farming for 25 years, and he says this is the driest year he has ever experienced. He farms land southwest of Niverville as well as in the Glenlea area. This region, he reports, has had 20 days when the temperature reached 30 degrees or higher so far.
The average, for what it’s worth, is 13 days.
This level of heat is bad enough for crops, but the situation is made all the worse by the almost complete lack of precipitation. Loeppky says that July is a critical time in the plants’ reproductive stage. This year, the dry weather and heat are stunting their growth.
“All rain is good rain,” says Loeppky. “But the little bit we’ve received recently isn’t enough to make a difference.
The region has received just 8.4 millimetres of precipitation in all of July, an astonishing low. The average amount of rainfall for July is 53 millimetres.
Not only is it hot and dry this summer, though, it has been hot and dry for several summers in a row. This long-term patterns compounds the effects on the soil, and thus the plants.
Loeppky says that crops are burning up in the fields and there’s nothing he can do. Each day crops lose further yield potential, which cannot be recovered even if the weather turned tomorrow.
It’s hard for even an experienced farmer to predict how much yield loss they will see in 2021, but Loeppky has some guesses. He speculates that canola will be the worst hit, perhaps suffering a 50 percent loss, if not more. Cereal crops, he expects, will yield about 60 percent of normal rates.
Corn and beans have taken a hit, too, but Loeppky says it’s too early to guess what kind of yield they will produce.
“I’m very concerned about how this year will play out and the effects it’ll have for future years,” he says. “We tend to be more on the wet side in the Red River valley, and I expect we’ll get back there someday. But for now we’ll try to focus on the many blessings we do have in our lives.”
In this difficult year, it’s been difficult getting farmers to open up about the struggles they’re facing.
Loeppky can understand the reasons for their reticence to talk. Even guessing at yield potential, he says, makes him cringe.
He adds that he wouldn’t want people to think farmers are having a “pity party,” because that’s not what’s happening. Rather, when the crops don’t grow, every single one of us pays the price in the end.