Over nine million acres unseeded
The Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture is estimating seeding progress at 70 per cent. That means more than nine million acres of intended acreage has not been seeded in the province. In the northeast and east central regions, only about half of the crop has been -planted. In some localized areas, the vast majority of cropland is unseeded. At this late and wet date, seeding progress isn’t expected to improve very much. I’ve had varied responses on the question of what governments should do about the situation. Some say existing programs are meant to deal with problems like this and no additional government response is warranted. Others believe that any additional programs would disproportionately compensate the “land barons”, who have more ground than they can handle. Others believe that without additional help, a lot of young, progressive producers are going to be lost. There were very few suggestions for exactly what governments should do, but one idea was a no-interest or low-interest loan similar to what General Motors received. Producers could get the loan no matter how much they were actually able to seed. It’s an interesting idea. If anyone else has an idea, I’d like to hear it. I’m Kevin Hursh.