It's been a tough year for farmers and in the end... we're ALL going to feel the crunch.
Having just endured one of the wettest summer's on record in years - delaying seeding to a huge extent - Saskatchewan farmers are now threatened by the risk of an early frost.
Cold temperatures were expected to bring frost to many parts of the province overnight Monday, creating extra challenges for producers already hit hard by massive amounts of rainfall.
"This is particularly hard on producers who are looking at reasonably good crops and are waiting to get out there, so we have the crop insurance program, certainly, it will contemplate help if it's needed," Premier Brad Wall said Monday, adding the province was already preparing information about the implications for crop insurance this year.
"I think, as you know, we have existing programs that cover this, not so much with respect to the unseeded acreage that we saw, but there are existing programs through the agri-stability suite of programs that the feds and the province are partners on and also through crop insurance, those exist already."
But with global weather patterns out of wack what's going to happen when it comes to food supplies and prices?
"It doesn't rain the way it used to."
That statement was made half a world away by the director of the World Water Week Conference in Stockholm, Sweden.
Producers here are facing the same problem as many farmers around the globe - changing weather patterns and erratic rainfall that are playing havoc with agriculture. Reports say devastating floods will likely force Pakistan to import grain this year while Russia has banned grain exports until late 2011 after its hottest summer on record sparked drought and massive fires. Meanwhile, Australian farmers face the worst locust plague in more than two decades after above normal rainfall created ideal conditions for insects to lay millions of eggs that are now hatching.
It's been a challenging year and it's not over yet. Let's hope Mother Nature has better things in store for 2011.
