Warren McCutcheon is too young to recall much about the 1988 drought, but based on stories he’s heard, he suspects a combination of factors resulted in many Manitoba farmers faring better after the 2021 drought.
The 1988 drought, dubbed at the time ‘the worst since the Dirty ’30s,’ triggered $790 million ($1.57 billion in today’s dollars) in ad hoc aid to Prairie grain farmers, including in Manitoba, through the Canadian Crop Drought Assistance Program.
In 1988 Manitoba grain farmers had very little crop, crop insurance coverage was poor and so were crop prices, McCutcheon, who farms at Homewood, said in an interview Jan. 26.
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For some Manitoba farmers, but certainly not all, they won’t be as badly off after 2021 versus 1988, he said.
“There are probably areas that don’t have the same crop insurance coverage (as around Homewood), but Manitoba in general has had 15 pretty good years,” McCutcheon said, “There was the odd miss in there in certain areas, but in general there have been 15 pretty good crop years to build up their crop average yields so you have some decent (crop insurance) coverage there. The other bonus this year is… the odds are you got a fairly good price for the grain (that was harvested)…
“And then you probably got a little bit of crop insurance money on top of that…
“This year was so different.
“It’s just the weirdest way to have a profitable year. We’re going to have the worst crop in 15-plus years… and financially it wasn’t too bad the way things worked out. It’s very odd.”
*See all 2022 dollar values for insured Manitoba crops at the MASC website.
