As of May 31, an estimated 79 per cent of the Prairie region was classified as abnormally dry (D0) or in moderate to extreme drought (D1 to D3), including 82 per cent of the region’s agricultural landscape.

That compares with 65 per cent in the abnormally dry to severe drought range the previous month, when 78 per cent of the agricultural land was impacted.

By the end of May an estimated nine per cent of the Prairies was dealing with severe to extreme drought (D2 to D3), from four per cent at the end of April.

“The Prairie region experienced a significantly dry and warm May, especially across southern and central parts of Alberta and southern parts of Manitoba,” the report said.

Average temperatures were reported between 3 C and greater than 5 C above normal across the region this month, with several locations reporting temperatures of more than 7 C above normal.

A record number of wildfires were reported across northern parts of the region, with a slow vegetative green-up and a late spring thaw contributing to the fire activity.

Soil moisture reserves were reported as extremely low across much of Alberta. “Because of these low reserves, crops will require timely rains to sustain them throughout the growing season,” AAFC said, noting two extreme drought pockets had been designated in Alberta.

The drought situation in Saskatchewan changed slightly this month compared to April, though the pattern remained the same: near- to above-normal precipitation fell in southern parts of the province while the north remained dry. Western parts of the province also continued to deal with impacts from the dry conditions as producers reported a lack of spring runoff and limited water availability. In contrast, a persistent jet stream allowed several storm systems to pass into southern parts of Saskatchewan, bringing sufficient moisture to the area.

Dry conditions in Manitoba shifted slightly eastward during the month, as southeastern and northeastern parts of the province received limited precipitation. These areas saw less than 40 per cent of normal precipitation in May, while southwestern Manitoba saw anywhere from 60 to 115 per cent of the expected monthly normal.

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And many areas in Western Canada and the United States are experiencing extreme drought — a once-in-20-year event.

Drought makes agriculture less productive, reduces crop yields and increases heat-related deaths. It adds to conflict and migration, as marginalized people are dispossessed of their land. In short, it leaves people more vulnerable.

Drought is part of natural climate variability, but it is also one of the many outcomes of climate change that is increasing in frequency and intensity. Droughts that used to occur in dry regions once every 10 years are now projected to occur more than four times a decade, if the Earth’s average temperature warms by 4 C.

Unless countries dramatically reduce their emissions from burning coal, oil and natural gas, we are bound to overshoot the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 C. Dryland areas could expand by a quarter and encompass half of the Earth’s land area, including parts of the Prairies.

Governments need to acknowledge that changes are already happening to dryland areas and that others can no longer be avoided, even with reduced emissions. We need to see better strategies to respond to wildfire, water scarcity and conflict, land degradation and desertification, if we are to reduce the loss of livelihoods and life from drought.

Drylands are warming twice as fast as humid areas. Scientists predict that in the next 50 years, between one billion and three billion people will be living in temperatures exceeding the climate range that has served humanity for more than 6,000 years, or migrating elsewhere.

Livelihoods and life will change fundamentally in these areas. Animal husbandry — such as livestock production — will no longer be possible as increasing temperatures lead to the widespread death of animals. And city infrastructure wasn’t built to handle intense flood events, which are causing damage and increasing in many dryland areas.

Current climate adaptation efforts to near-term drought and flood events tend to be reactive, incremental and small. For example, Yorkton, Sask., responded to three consecutive flood events with some infrastructure change, but enduring social learning has been lost as time passes.

These short-sighted interventions mean vulnerable and marginalized people suffer most. Recurring drought reduces the availability of drought-risk reduction supports such as crop insurance by making insurance premiums more expensive, possibly unattainable to many farmers.

Governments must start implementing policies that aim to reduce the future impacts of drought and build farmer resilience. They might offer solutions to wind erosion and dust management or launch campaigns to reduce water consumption and promote the restoration or reclamation of landscapes. They could embrace landscape heterogeneity strategies — varieties of crops and patches of non-cultivated land — that allow bees and pollinators to thrive. After wildfires, policies and funding could accelerate restoration by planting trees and vegetation for windbreaks, as well as encourage farmers to plant drought-tolerant food crops.

Assessing the risk of climate events such as drought, flood or fire and their impacts before they occur allows for the assessment of the appropriate division of public and private responsibilities in preventing, planning for, and responding to these events when they do occur.

While increasing incremental adaptation is important, large systemic change or transformational adaptation may be necessary to address worsening climate risks. These adaptations might include developing and implementing water storage technologies, changes to grazing and farming practices to preserve soil and behavioural changes to reduce water usage.

There may also be residual risks that adaptation can’t address, as well as maladaptation — actions that unintentionally increase the risk of adverse outcomes due to climate change. For instance, groundwater is a source of irrigation in many parts of the world and its depletion may have passed a tipping point where it cannot be recharged by precipitation.

In water-scarce regions, farmers may use low-quality water resources (called marginal-quality waters), such as waste water or drainage water, that may be high in salts, pathogens and heavy metals, to irrigate their crops. This can lead to salt accumulating in the soil and can make the land unusable for agriculture, which can then have consequences for food security.

In India, for example, many hectares of land are projected to become unusable by 2050, at a cost of US$3 billion. The global economic losses of salt-induced land degradation are estimated at US$27.3 billion per year. In California, lack of irrigation water could cause food prices to rise globally.

While the world’s governments consider ways to reduce emissions to limit global warming, adaptation and resilience must remain high on their list of priorities. The world is on course to overshoot its climate targets and, as the window of opportunity closes, these policies have become increasingly necessary.

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Total field crop production in the country was forecast to decrease due to a return to trend or below trend yields, based on information available at the end of June, according to the report.

Canola production for 2021-22 was forecast at 19.885 million tonnes, which would be down slightly from the June estimate but still above the 18.72 million tonnes grown the previous year as increased planted area offsets a slight downgrade in yields.

Total Canadian wheat production for the year was forecast at 31.428 million tonnes — up by nearly 400,000 tonnes from the June forecast, but still below the 35.187 million tonnes grown in 2020-21.

“Hot and dry conditions continue to adversely affect Western Canada and are a cause for significant uncertainty at this time in the growing season in regards to estimates of yield and production,” the department said.

Recent fires in British Columbia damaged both Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railway (CN, CP) lines to Vancouver. While the lines have been repaired, they are operating at reduced capacity and AAFC noted the backlog in transportation may slow shipments.

Canola ending stocks for the current marketing year were left unchanged at 700,000 tonnes with the new-crop carryout now also steady at 700,000 tonnes, from 750,000 in June. That would be well below the 3.131 million-tonne carryout from 2019-20.

Total wheat carryout for 2021-22 was lowered to 4.9 million tonnes, from 5.05 million tonnes in June. Old-crop wheat ending stocks were steady at 4.65 million tonnes.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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Yet there is one aspect about this year’s crop they already know.

Increased seeded acreage this spring, and market access problems hindering longer-term durum sales, mean farmers might want to temper expectations.

“It’s almost in a way, you can’t buy a break,” said Bruce Burnett, director of MarketsFarm at Glacier FarmMedia.

The combination of plentiful supplies and problems with traditional durum customers in Turkey and Italy will come into play as the crop year progresses, he said.

A good North Dakota durum crop may also limit sales opportunities for Canadian durum into traditional U.S. markets, he added.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s world agricultural supply and demand estimates (WASDE), released Aug. 10, rated the North Dakota durum crop as 80 per cent good to excellent. The U.S. has 35.9 million bushels of durum in storage and 1.89 million seeded acres coming off in this year’s harvest.

In Canada, supplies are also strong.

Though this year’s durum harvest will have smaller yields in many areas, it will not have a major impact on overall supplies, Burnett said.

“I think one of the problems the market is going to have (is) we’ve increased our durum area significantly this year,” he said.

Canadian farmers seeded 6.185 million acres of durum this year, compared to 5.205 million in 2017, according to Statistics Canada. Saskatchewan accounted for 4.99 million.

While lack of moisture and a prolonged heat wave have affected durum-growing areas of southwestern Saskatchewan, and into Alberta, Burnett said other durum areas have fared better.

Areas of south-central Saskatchewan around Assiniboia saw much improved moisture, he said, but the heat will pull down prospects.

“So the yield potentials are not where you think they’d be, given some of the early-season precipitation at least.”

Barry Taylor, who farms near Southey, Sask., about 60 km north of Regina, said most durum in his region looks decent.

Most of his 900 durum acres received about average moisture, he said, but most of that came early in the growing season.

Quality looks about average for his area, he said, but prices are not as good as they could be and he’s hoping to see that turn around.

“I’ve got all my durum and I got all my lentils from last year, so I got to sell something,” he said.

“We’ll get rid of it all. Once we start combining and we see what kind of quality it is, it should be good.”

Burnett said analysts will know more about the quality of this year’s harvest in a week or two, but so far it looks like yield prospects for the southern durum areas decline the further one moves west from Assiniboia.

He said areas of central Saskatchewan, north of the South Saskatchewan River and north of Moose Jaw where there is significant durum area, will have better crops.

With a significant crop coming off fields, and problems with some of Canada’s traditional durum buyers, Burnett said he’s inclined to wait for better news on the supply and market access issues, rather than take up a leader’s position.

A leading farm group in Italy has been protesting Canadian durum use by Italian pasta makers, falsely criticizing Canadian durum for high levels of vomitoxin, glyphosate residue and as being genetically modified.

The Italian government has called on pasta makers to include country-of-origin on labels, which would require them to segregate Canadian durum before use.

Italy has also threatened that it will refuse to sign the trade agreement between the European Union and Canada over the durum dispute. It bought $321 million worth of Canadian durum in 2016.

An economic crisis in Turkey will almost certainly keep that country from becoming a major durum buyer this year.

— Terry Fries writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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Dry conditions in many regions of the Prairies and ergot in Manitoba are expected to drive down yields.

Jonathan Hull of The Scoular Co. said he has been hearing from farmers that yields could be off by 25 to 30 per cent compared to 2017, when 323,800 tonnes were harvested.

“It’s still pretty early for actual, actual yields, but farmers I talk to say it will be off that much.”

Once the crop is in the bin, he said, some farmers may discover the situation is less dire than that, but that’s what they are saying now.

Ergot problems were particularly pronounced around the Carman, Man. area, he said.

In 2016, Canadian farmers harvested 436,000 tonnes of rye; they harvested 225,500 tonnes in 2015, 217,500 tonnes in 2014, 222,900 in 2013.

Hull said growers have overproduced for the last two years so this year’s decline comes as no surprise.

“It was overproduced and so prices hit a low and then last year we ran into just moisture issues during planting so less people seeded,” he said.

Last fall, farmers planted 201,200 acres, according to Statistics Canada. That compares with 259,800 for the 2017 growing season and 370,540 for 2016.

Manitoba is Canada’s top rye-producing province with 114,300 tonnes harvested last year, compared to 113,000 tonnes in Saskatchewan, 48,000 tonnes in Ontario and 33,500 tonnes in Alberta, according to Statistics Canada data.

— Terry Fries writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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Statistics Canada is predicting soybean acres in Manitoba to drop to 1.96 million from 2.29 million, according to its principal field crop areas report released April 27. Overall across Western Canada, soybean area is predicted to fall to 2.485 million acres from 3.14 million.

“From what I’m seeing out there talking to growers… with the yields being a little lower and canola yields being stronger last year, that we would seed less soybean acres,” said Dennis Lange, pulse crop specialist with Manitoba Agriculture in Altona.

Francois Labelle, executive director of Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers, doesn’t think soybean acres will drop as much. Since Statistics Canada conducted its survey, market conditions have changed, making soybeans a more profitable crop.

Growers, he said, have “been seeing higher prices. A month or six weeks ago, we had a meeting and growers were talking about it that they were being offered $11 a bushel for new-crop and then the numbers reached as high as $12 a bushel.”

Soybean markets have been driven higher on production issues in the major soybean-growing region of Argentina. U.S. soybean exports have also dropped after becoming part of an ongoing trade disagreement between the U.S. and China.

According to Labelle, most soybean acres have already been planted in the east of the province, near the Red River Valley. Dry conditions have plagued the province of late and soybeans are a crop that needs moisture. However, Labelle said, the dry conditions aren’t scaring off Manitoba growers.

Soybeans, he said, “have been profitable for them for years, quite a few years, so (growers are) still interested in them. Being that it’s a dry year, no different than any other crop right now, we’re going to need timely rains.”

Lange, however, thinks the dry year last year will bring soybean acres closer to the Statistics Canada predictions. Soybeans produced low yields last year compared to years past.

“We had a record-breaking year for acres, at 2.3 million acres. And because summer was typically fairly dry in July and August yields weren’t the same as what they were in the record-breaking yield year of 2016,” he said. “So we were looking at more of an average of 34 bushels an acre in 2017.”

Planting intentions are usually planned out during the winter, so Lange doesn’t expect producers will have changed their plans too much due to the change in the soybean market.

— Ashley Robinson writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow her at @AshleyMR1993 on Twitter.

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The area of concern lies within a triangle shape, with the northern tip at Saskatoon, one arm stretching southeast to Weyburn, Estevan and the U.S. border, and the other stretching southwest to Swift Current, Maple Creek and the U.S. border.

“That is the area that is short to very short in moisture,” said Patrick Mooleki, who works out of the provincial Agriculture Knowledge Centre in Moose Jaw.

Areas of the province that escaped the dryness include the eastern side of the province and the grainbelt north of Saskatoon.

There have been only a few reports of crop damage so far, he said, but rain is needed soon or that may change.

“It isn’t really showing crop damage as such, but it is showing significant signals.”

As July’s big growth season kicks in, he said, many plants could struggle and be less lush, though they may not show signs of wilting. Still, yields would be affected.

As well, he said, some fields show uneven development, which makes herbicide timing difficult.

“We hate to use the word ‘drought’ unless we have really severe drought,” he said, adding that the dry region of Saskatchewan is some ways away from drought yet because there is still hope that rain could turn the situation around.

“Plants can hold on unless it doesn’t rain. But we haven’t reached that stage yet.”

Many areas went into fall with adequate or surplus soil moisture and that has helped plants survive, he said.

As well, the weather has been relatively cool so far, which has helped conserve moisture. Lately, however, wind and warmer temperatures have been adding to the dryness.

“So we might be running into real significant issues if we don’t get the precipitation we should get.”

“It’s all crops that are affected. There is no crop that is spared.”

Soil moisture on Alberta cropland is at least adequate in most regions outside of a corridor stretching from Lethbridge to Calgary, said Daniel Itenfisu, a drought modeler for Alberta Agriculture in Edmonton.

“It is low to moderately low (in the Lethbridge-to-Calgary corridor) but for the rest of the southern region it is moderately normal,” he said.

Soil conditions in the rest of cropland in the south, as well as in the rest of the province, range from adequate to high moisture, he said.

Pastures with sandy soils are a different matter, he added. “They are stressed more due to the hot weather conditions.”

Rain is still needed and if it doesn’t arrive soon, crops could be damaged, he said.

“Soil moisture could change with a good rain. Overnight it could be replenished and maybe you’ll see a different condition.

“It’s time. (Plants) like the hot weather but what is going to be the limiting factor is only the rainfall.”

Manitoba is arguably in the best shape of the three Prairie provinces and is in more of a wait-and-see situation.

While dry pockets exist in the province’s southwest, nobody is yet raising alarms.

“We haven’t seen negative effects because of dry weather. We just know that crops could benefit from rain,” said Anne Kirk of Manitoba Agriculture.

Precipitation in the southwest is 70 per cent of normal and rain was expected this week. She added that some rain fell last night, but she hadn’t yet seen reports on whether it had any effect.

“So far, rain has been pretty variable.”

Throughout the rest of the province, however, Manitoba growers appear to be having a good year. The exception is The Pas, in the far northwestern growing region, where fields remain sodden.

“Across most of the province, crops are looking very good,” Kirk said.

Crops more suited for cooler temperatures, such as cereals and canola, were faring especially well, she said.

Warmer-season crops such as soybeans and corn went through a growth burst last week as temperatures climbed, she said.

As to the dryness in the southwest, Kirk is not sure if, or when, growers might start to see problems if no rain arrives. For now, soil moisture is adequate.

“We’re not seeing damage as of yet and we’re not sure when conditions might become a problem.”

— Terry Fries writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow CNS Canada at @CNSCanada on Twitter.

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The surge in spring wheat futures on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange (MGEX) also lifted Chicago Board of Trade wheat to a one-year peak and buoyed corn and soybeans as well.

CBOT July wheat settled up 23 cents at $4.80-1/4 per bushel after reaching $4.83-3/4, the highest spot price in a year (all figures US$).

CBOT July corn ended up three cents at $3.59-3/4 a bushel and July soybeans rose 1-1/2 cents to $9.15-1/2 a bushel.

MGEX July spring wheat settled up 36-1/2 cents at $7.41-1/4 a bushel after reaching $7.59-3/4, the highest spot price since May 2014. The September contract briefly traded up its 60-cent daily limit to $7.68 before paring gains.

“(Minneapolis) wheat took off higher today on week-over-week expansion in drought conditions across the northern Great Plains, smaller spring wheat area for Canada, and good high-protein USDA export sales data,” said Terry Reilly, senior commodity analyst for Futures International.

Statistics Canada estimated Canada’s 2017 all-wheat seedings at 22.4 million acres, down from 23.2 million in 2016 and below an average of trade estimates for 22.7 million. The agency said Canadian farmers planted 15.8 million acres of spring wheat, down from its April planting intentions figure of 16.7 million.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture was scheduled to release updated U.S. plantings figures on Friday. Analysts expect USDA to lower its U.S. spring wheat plantings estimate to 11.2 million acres, from its March forecast of 11.3 million.

The latest weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, released Thursday by a consortium of climatologists, showed “extreme drought” covering 25 per cent of North Dakota, by far the top U.S. spring wheat producer, up from about eight per cent a week ago.

Forecasts looked dire. “I really do not see much rain at all coming up over the next seven days. Conditions are going to be deteriorating once again across that area,” said Kyle Tapley, a meteorologist with MDA Weather Services.

CBOT corn and soybeans firmed with spillover support from wheat and weakness in the dollar countering benign weather conditions in much of the U.S. Midwest.

Traders were squaring positions before Friday’s USDA acreage and quarterly stocks reports, which have a history of triggering sharp price movements.

— Julie Ingwersen is a commodities correspondent for Reuters in Chicago; additional reporting for Reuters by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Naveen Thukral in Singapore.

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“We have heard that dry conditions have caused plants (peas) to slough off or have the tillers dry off and have lost those heads,” said Barry Yaremcio at Alberta’s Ag-Info Centre in Stettler.

“One guy was saying his neighbour got 12 to 15 bushels an acre and he was getting 21. So definitely we’re looking at below-average yields,” said Ag-Info Centre crop specialist Harry Brook.

So far peas, fall rye, winter wheat and some lentils have started to come off. Yaremcio said dry weather helped to speed up the harvest.

“Some guys are also swathing barley; the crop came along a lot faster because of the dry conditions — just matured quicker than normal,” he said.

However, while rain in the last few days of July and early August helped replenish many Alberta plants, Yaremcio said some crops just didn’t make it.

“In the area that didn’t get the good rains the first part of August, lots of the crop is being cut for greenfeed or silage. Crop insurance is writing them off.”

The Pincher Creek area in southwestern Alberta is the one region he’s heard of that had great crops, but crops there received two to three inches of moisture in late May and early June, he noted.

As for the rest of the province, Brook said he feels some of the later-seeded crops may have an advantage over earlier-seeded fields “because they got the rain in a more timely manner.”

Western Saskatchewan is harvesting and encountering many of the same moisture issues, according to Norm Hall, president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS).

“Lentils in the southwest are about a third to two-thirds of normal while the winter wheat near Wynyard (about 180 km east of Saskatoon) is a little bit below normal.”

While the western half suffered from a lack of moisture, the same can’t be said for crops to the east of Moose Jaw or Prince Albert.

“East of that and the crops are closer to average. In the northeast there’s reports of fantastic-looking crops,” said Hall.

Some eastern areas have had so much rain in the past few weeks that some lentil fields have desiccated on their own — but farmers, Hall said, “can’t get equipment out there; there’s too much water.”

— Dave Sims writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow CNS at @CNSCanada on Twitter.

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FCC on Monday announced it would work with affected customers on “solutions for their operation(s)” such as deferral of principal payments and/or otherwise amending their loan payment schedules.

The offer applies to farmers in “parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan facing financial hardship as a result of dry conditions.”

The federal farm lender said it would also expand those offers to include customers in other areas “if and when the need arises.”

Livestock and grain producers in Alberta and some parts of Saskatchewan have reported “drastically reduced” levels of rainfall since April 1, FCC said, with some areas of Alberta at their driest for soil moisture in the past 50 years.

“These kinds of extreme dry conditions, in some cases for the second year in a row, can cause financial challenges for farm operations — not to mention personal hardship and stress,” FCC CEO Michael Hoffort said.

FCC last year made similar offers in December, to B.C. poultry and egg producers impacted by avian flu quarantines; in August, to farmers hit by excess moisture in Quebec’s Monteregie and Eastern Townships; and in July, to producers affected by flooding in eastern Saskatchewan and western Manitoba. — AGCanada.com Network

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