Why it matters: Storms caused extensive damage where they hit

“What began as a season marked by drought-like conditions and expectations of an early harvest took an unexpected turn,” said CCHA president Tyson Ryhorchuk in a news release, adding “significant rainfall arrived just in time for many regions, regenerating crops and resulting in yields that exceeded initial forecasts.”

However, several severe storms across the Prairies led to significant cumulative losses, resulting in insurance payouts totaling millions of dollars.

“A mid-June storm rolled through the south portion of (Saskatchewan) where the area of Mankota saw crops reduced to stubble,” said Brian Bernauer, Rain and Hail Insurance Services.

An intense storm that hit Western Canada on July 3 brought large hailstones, strong winds and heavy rain that resulted in substantial crop losses for CCHA members. Some farmers reported hail stones up to golf ball size.

Lower commodity prices led to a decrease in total insured acres and reduced indemnity levels per acre, said the CCHA. Late season claims were particularly abundant, but CCHA member companies worked diligently to address these losses promptly, minimizing disruption to harvest operations for farmers.

“Our customers filed more claims than last year,” said Bruce Lowe, of AG Direct Hail Insurance. “But despite the increase in claims, our adjusting team continued to meet and exceed our internal targets to close claims quickly and issue loss awards to our customers.” The CCHA is a member-driven organization that represents the interests of the Canadian Crop Hail Agencies and insurance companies. These private and government organizations provide a risk management tool to the farmers across Canada. Members are Municipal Hail Insurance, AG Direct Hail Insurance Ltd, Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (Alberta), Canadian Hail Agencies, Co-operative Hail Insurance Company, Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation, Rain and Hail Insurance Service Ltd., and Palliser Insurance Company Ltd.

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“The claim count is much higher than typical [for this time of year] and the severity of losses at this stage is costly to producers and insurers,” said Rodney Schoettler of Saskatchewan Municipal Hail Insurance.

CCHA member companies were investigating 630 claims of crop damage from isolated storms that hit farms across Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan during the week of September 16-22.

“With the volume of claims that fell in a short period we could not keep up with the demand to adjust claims as quickly as we normally would,” said Schoettler, expressing gratitude for farmers’ patience as the damage is assessed.

Companies contributing to the report were Palliser Insurance, Agriculture Financial Services Corporation, Saskatchewan Municipal Hail Insurance, Co-operative Hail Insurance Company, and Rain and Hail Insurance.

More information and past reports at https://cropinsuranceincanada.org/

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More than one million acres were either damaged or destroyed by the storms bringing hail and strong winds, leading to more than 2,800 claims of crop damage, according to the Canadian Crop Hail Association (CCHA).

“This was the biggest week for claims in August in the last decade,” said Rodney Schoettler of Saskatchewan Municipal Hail Insurance.

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Along with Saskatchewan Municipal Hail Insurance, claims were also filed through Palliser Insurance, Agriculture Financial Services Corporation, and Co-operative Hail Insurance Company.

“This was one of our busiest weeks, with multiple storms producing hail of all sizes, accompanied by big winds,” Scott McQueen of Palliser Insurance said.

CCHA members asked clients to wait patiently as companies processed claims and sent adjusters out to survey damage.

In Alberta, at least 23 communities were affected by the storms with damage to numerous crops: alfalfa, barley, dry beans, canola, chickpeas, corn, faba beans, lentils, mustard, oats, peas, timothy, triticale and wheat.

At least 24 communities in Saskatchewan saw damage to fields in surrounding areas, affecting all crops.

In Manitoba, 10 communities were affected, all in the western part of the province, with wheat, canola, corn, soybeans and peas affected.

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According to an Aug. 30 release from the Canadian Crop Hail Association, storms between Aug. 12-18 racked up 1,340 claims across all three Prairie provinces. Hail during the spate of storms ranged from pea- to golf ball-sized.

Saskatchewan bore the brunt of the severe hail instances, according to the association, with the worst crop damage reported across the north-central region of that province from Laird to Hudson Bay and south to Regina.

Large patches of Alberta were also impacted, including the Milk River region, Taber, Bow Island, Claresholm, Champion, Cayley, Bowden, Craigmyle, Alliance, Provost, Calmar, Hay Lakes, Mundare, Elk Point, Fairview and Nampa.

Damage in Manitoba skirted the province’s western border. The impacted area included a strip from Reston in the southwest to Russell in the northwest.

The high amount of claims and severity of the weather at this time of year is atypical, insurers noted. Rodney Schoettler of Saskatchewan Municipal Hail Insurance noted that, “August is typically a lower hail event month.”

The significant increase in claims has Schoettler asking for farmers to be patient as they and other insurance services work to finish adjusting those claims.

The mid-August claims follow yet more hail reports the weeks before, largely in Alberta. The Canadian Crop Hail Association reported 1,642 claims between July 29 and Aug. 11, 75 per cent of which occurred in Alberta.

At that time, representatives from the Agricultural Financial Services Corporation warned producers to leave enough on the field for adjusters, if they planned on harvesting, cutting or otherwise salvaging a field with an ongoing claim.

Data from Rain and Hail Insurance Service, Palliser Insurance, Agriculture Financial Services Corporation, Saskatchewan Municipal Hail Insurance, Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation, and Co-operative Hail Insurance Company all fed into the Aug. 30 release.

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In Alberta, cereals, pulses, potatoes, sugar beets and other crops were damaged in communities like Vauxhall, Medicine Hat, Okotoks, High River, Cochrane, Strathmore, Bassano and others.

Alberta claims comprised more than 75 per cent of the 1,642 cases.

In Saskatchewan, wheat, barley, lentils, peas and canola were damaged in communities like Estevan, Oxbow, Regina, Weyburn, Alameda, Swift Current, North Battleford, Moose Jaw, and others.

In Manitoba, wheat, canola, corn and soybeans were damaged near Virden, Beausejour, Steinbach and Tourond.

“With harvest beginning in some areas, producers are reminded to leave adequate representative areas for adjusters to assess, if they are harvesting, cutting, or salvaging their crops,” said Yves Dooper, Agricultural Financial Services Corporation.

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The Canadian Crop Hail Association (CCHA) said in a report the organization’s member companies were investigating approximately 1,000 claims of crop damage from storms occurring between June 23 and July 1.

“Numerous early season storms have resulted in a number of claims for the industry,” CCHA Chairman Scott McQueen of Palliser Insurance said in a statement. “Cereals have generally fared better as many were hit in the grassy stages of development and minimal damage to the plant was caused with environmental conditions being favourable so that crops that were hit by hail are able to recover.”

Eleven communities in Alberta and 14 more in Saskatchewan were impacted by the storms. Crops damaged were barley, canola, cereals, chickpeas, corn, dry beans, flax, lentils, mixed grain, mustard, oats, oilseeds, peas, pulses, sugar beets and wheat. There were no claims reported in Manitoba.

Companies contributing to the report were Rain and Hail Insurance Service, Agriculture Financial Services Corporation, Palliser Insurance, Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation and Municipal Hail Insurance.

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“We had an extremely warm winter with lower-than-normal precipitation in most areas,” says Trevor Hadwen, agroclimate specialist for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. “We were a little worried going into the spring, for sure. But this has calmed us down.”

While the wet spring created difficulties in seeding in a few fields, most producers across the Prairies have their fields seeded with sufficient topsoil moisture to get the crop off to a decent start.

After years of having to adapt to drought, though, what does this shift to wetter growing conditions look like for dryland Prairie farmers?

Soil management strategies

Ken Panchuk, a provincial soils specialist for Saskatchewan’s ministry of agriculture, says for the most part, big-picture soil management strategies won’t change much for dryland farmers in his province. Strategies such as no-till and regenerative farming are widespread and excellent at managing water in dry or wet conditions.

But in a province like Manitoba, where there is a little less uniformity in soil management strategies, the situation can differ from one farm to another.

“It may depend a little bit on what the soil management strategy has been on those fields,” says Marla Riekman, a soil management specialist for Manitoba Agriculture. “If soils have good structure and haven’t been over-tilled, they may be soaking up and using some of this water a little better, because they may have an easier time infiltrating that water deeper into the soil profile.”

But producers who have structural issues, where water doesn’t move down into the soil profile as easily, may find themselves struggling with problems such as soil compaction this year.

“Now that we have a bit of moisture, the soil particles can slide over each other a little bit easier. This is where soils can be at a higher risk of things like compaction associated with field activity,” she says. “We tend to see more ponding in those compacted areas of the field.”

Obviously, avoiding field activity is impossible, but Riekman says farmers finding themselves in that position should start thinking about basic concepts for mitigating compaction.

“We want to make sure that we’re thinking about things like properly ballasted tractors, making sure our tractor tires are at their rated pressures, and making sure that we’re limiting some of the weight of the equipment where we can,” she says. And if these conditions carry into the fall, farmers should try to reduce the amount of random traffic crossing the fields with equipment such as grain carts.

Managing salinity

Riekman stresses that salinity issues don’t go away during wetter periods; they just hide.

During dry years, salinity tends to get worse because there is more evaporation than precipitation, which results in insufficient water moving down to wash the salts down into the root zone. Because of this, the water moves upward (through processes like capillary rise), bringing salts toward the surface, where they often show up visibly with that bathtub ring effect.

“Now that we’ve moved into some wetter periods, we start to see the salinity become diluted at the surface, or hidden,” Riekman says. “So we may have a temporary reprieve.”

But even in a wet cycle like this, if the rains continue and the water table rises close to the surface, the salts will rise with the water table and begin to show up again.

“Salinity is always cycling; it comes along with wet and dry periods,” Riekman says.

Paradoxically, Riekman says years like this, when the problem seemingly goes away, are often the best time to start managing salinity.

“If you have areas where you want to establish a salt-tolerant forage during those dry years, it can be very difficult; the soil is just too dry at the surface. When you have a bit of moisture, you may have better luck,” she says.

Weed control strategies

Weed control is another undertaking that changes under wetter conditions.

“Right now, producers are focused on watching the flushes of weeds coming,” Panchuk says. “When you have frequent showers, that’s a recipe for getting the next flush of weeds established.”

The big question producers and extension specialists like Panchuk will have to address is which weeds are developing and at what density, so they can determine the correct control products to use.

“Because weeds are competing for moisture and nutrients, you don’t want to let the weeds get too far advanced,” Panchuk says. “If this generous raining pattern that we have becomes a drier bias, then producers will need every drop of moisture that was conserved earlier in the growing season to bring the crop to maturity.”

The timing is also critical.

“We’ve got the longest days of the growing season upon us right now, so take every opportunity to get as much growth occurring as possible to get canopy cover,” Panchuk advises. “Once the canopy covers the field, then the crop would have a competitive edge over any new germinating weeds.”

Think about insurance

As we head into a wetter summer with high temperatures expected, farmers may also want to make sure hail insurance is updated. While this moisture is definitely a good-news story for farmers, there’s a literal black cloud attached to it: an increased risk of severe storms.

“One of the key components of getting storm events is moisture,” Hadwen says. “If we have moisture available on the surface and we get some heat, that will breed thunderstorm activity.”

The number of hail events has been relatively low during the dry years, but that appears set to change this year, he says.

“We will likely get larger and more storm events than we have had in recent years.”

Not out of the woods yet

While the moisture the Prairies have received this spring has recharged the water table, Hadwen said it’s a bit too early to declare the drought over — although that day appears close in Manitoba.

“We’re not quite out of the woods in some parts of the Prairie region,” Hadwen warns. “The rain is going to solve the immediate moisture needs, but it still takes a long time for the pastures to fully recover, and it also takes a long time for water supplies and groundwater to fully recover.”

Manitoba is a little bit different from the rest of the Prairies at this point, he adds.

“Manitoba has received the most moisture. The province received about 200 millimetres of precipitation in the central region, all the way from Winnipeg over to Brandon.”

This is typical for Manitoba, he says, because the province tends to have a wetter climate, but in recent years, southern Manitoba has been in a significant drought in terms of moisture deficit levels.

There is little concern for Manitoba in terms of moisture deficits, Hadwen says; in fact, the province has pretty much recovered. The only area of concern is the province’s northwest, which has received a little less precipitation than the rest of Manitoba.

“Last year, we had some very dry conditions compared to what we would normally get,” Hadwen says, adding that timely rains, as well as conditions cooler than the rest of the Prairies, helped.

“But this year, that 200 millimetres for that central southern portion of the province is excellent for soil moisture, though probably a little too much for some areas,” he says. “That is starting to percolate and really recharge those subsoils.”

In Saskatchewan, Hadwen says, precipitation ranged from just over 100 mm around the Regina area to a maximum of about 150 mm in the area west of Saskatoon.

But nevertheless, the drought prognosis is almost as good for Saskatchewan as it is for Manitoba, with only a small pocket in the agricultural area in the northwest with any significant drought risk.

“In that western region of the province — Kindersley, Leader, and even all the way up to the North Battleford area — it has been a little bit drier,” Hadwen says. “They’re recovering, but just not at the rate that we need. They were certainly in a much larger deficit going into the year. So we still have some concerns. But again, we’re seeing tremendous improvement.”

Most of Alberta received rainfall in the 100- to 125-mm range, and as a result, the province is a little bit worse off in terms of drought. One area that seems to be missing most of the rainfall so far is Alberta’s Peace region, but Hadwen says that region doesn’t normally get the bulk of its rain until late June or early July.

“That central region of the province has a little bit of what we call that D2, or severe drought category, and a little bit of D1, which is moderate,” Hadwen says. “But the reality is that those areas were the D3s or D4s last month, so we’ve seen improvement throughout the Prairie region.”

Unlike Manitoba, the subsoil is not fully recharged in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

“We have the moisture in that top root zone that will really get us through that spring period, but we really need moisture to percolate down and recharge levels further down,” Hadwen says. “We’re going to need continued rain this season. We don’t have those deeper moisture levels to really rely on.”

Precipitation models aren’t telling forecasters much for the coming months, he says, but there is some reason for optimism from the meteorologist maxim, “Rain begets rain and drought begets drought.”

“It’s a cyclical thing,” Hadwen says. “You need that moisture that we’ve received to break the drought. Now that we’ve got the moisture in the system, we will continue to get some big rainfall events until that moisture dries out.”

Hadwen also points to a significant moisture deficit in the three- to five-year period.

“We have fixed the moisture deficit for most regions in the one-year timeframe. But over the three-year timeframe, we’re still seeing pretty big deficits,” he says. “So we’re still not fully out of the drought.”

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The province’s Agriculture Financial Services Corp. (AFSC) said Monday its farmer customers will get a 20 per cent discount on crop insurance premiums this year — which on 2,000 insured acres, for example, would translate to about $8,000 in savings.

The corporation’s crop fund reserve “is now at a point where it can help support discounted premiums, without posing significant risk to the overall program,” AFSC said in a release.

That said, there’s still enough in the fund to “mitigate a major event, such as a province-wide disaster in 2021 or beyond,” the agency added.

In all, the move amounts to about $55 million in savings for farmers in the 2021 crop year, AFSC said.

The discount is to be applied to farmers’ net AgriInsurance premiums, including premiums paid for hail endorsement, spring price endorsement and moisture deficiency endorsement.

Any farmers whose perennial-crop billings have already been sent from AFSC will get a revised bill with the reduction applied, the agency said.

The discount won’t apply to straight hail insurance, nor to the Western Livestock Price Insurance (WLPIP) program, neither of which are cost-shared by the federal and provincial governments.

While AFSC plans to apply the 2021-level discount each year over the next five years, it said the discount will be “revisited annually and adjusted based on the events of the previous year.”

Crop insurance rates are calculated on an “actuarially-sound methodology,” AFSC said, but agriculture can be “quite variable” in terms of where and when major weather-related problems appear.

Though some areas “have experienced the extremes of unharvested (acres) and/or drought, we have been fortunate to have had a favourable decade without a significant widespread provincial event.”

If such a major event hits the province, the fund’s balance would be depleted and the discount revisited, the agency said.

AFSC CEO Darryl Kay, announcing the premium cut, said he’s “proud that our healthy crop insurance program in Alberta can give producers a bit of a break when they need it most.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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AFSC, the province’s Agriculture Financial Services Corporation, announced Wednesday it will accept such applications from eligible growers from now until Sept. 11. Applications will be available online through AFSC Connect.

AFSC described its offer as a “one-time initiative” for farmers in those regions insured under its hail endorsement or straight hail insurance, “who have drowned-out crops that are no longer viable, and thus would be ineligible for a hail claim.”

Premiums will only be refunded on acres deemed as having “non-viable” crops, which AFSC defines as “those where the yield possible is considered not to be worth the cost of harvesting.”

The offer will apply only in cases where farmers who bought AFSC hail insurance have over 10 per cent flooded or non-viable acres in a given field — in which case they can then have those specific acres declared non-viable for the refund.

Furthermore, AFSC said, any non-viable acres on which it has already paid out for hail damage are not eligible for the refund.

Also, the premium cancellation will be only on hail endorsement or straight hail insurance; annual crop production insurance coverage remains in effect, AFSC said.

For each affected field, clients will need to report provide legal land descriptions, part, crop type, acres insured and non-viable acres by the deadline of 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 11.

Refunds to eligible growers will be issued in the fall, as part of AFSC’s harvested production report and post-harvest activities, the agency said.

AFSC emphasized the offer is a “special refund, in response to the excessive moisture in the northern part of Alberta.”

In its Aug. 11 crop report, the province described the northeast reporting region — which includes Smoky Lake, Vermilion, Camrose and Provost — as needing “warm drier weather along with wind” to dry fields.

The same report showed the northwest reporting region (Barrhead, Edmonton, Leduc, Drayton Valley, Athabasca) as “still struggling with excessive soil moisture, resulting in delayed crop maturity.”

In that region, the province said, some crops were 10-14 days behind normal, while “in more severe cases, crops are dying off. Yield potential is impacted by wet conditions and low quality is expected.”

Meanwhile in the Peace reporting region (Fairview, Falher, Grande Prairie, Valleyview) crops in low areas were described as “thin and in poor condition, while the rest of crops look very good.”

“We recognize the challenges many farmers in the northeast, northwest and Peace region(s) are facing as they deal with back-to-back years of excessive moisture,” AFSC interim CEO Jerry Bouma said Wednesday in a release.

“Many AFSC staff are also producers, so we understand the frustration and disappointment farmers feel when they can’t harvest the crop or conditions simply won’t allow it to grow.”

The agency “realize(s) this won’t fix the problem,” he said, “but it is something AFSC can do to help farmers impacted by these extreme moisture conditions.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Most farmers were caught by surprise by the repeated rain and hail that has lashed fields full of mature crops, raising concerns about quality degradation, threatening to cut yields, and pushing back harvests.

Farmers in one of the world’s leading food-producing and -consuming countries sow winter crops from October, a month after the June-September monsoon rains end, with harvesting starting from March. Wheat, rapeseed and chickpeas are the main winter-planted crops.

Rains have hit the wheat crop in the northern states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, India’s grain belt.

“The crop has suffered extensive and irreversible damage in eastern Uttar Pradesh,” said Sudhir Panwar, chief of farmers’ group Kisan Jagriti Manch. “The government is yet to assess the damage, and by the time the farmers get any compensation from the government, it will be too late.”

Although it is too early to get an exact picture of the extent of the harm to the wheat crop, rain and hail have caused severe damage in Punjab’s farm districts, including Fazilka, Patiala, Sangrur and Amritsar, said Ramandeep Singh Mann, a farmer from the region.

The farm ministry last month forecast wheat output in India, the world’s second-biggest producer, at 106.21 million tonnes in 2020, up 2.5 per cent from the previous year.

Although brim-full granaries will help India deal with any drop in wheat output, crop losses will cut farmers’ meagre incomes.

Indian farmers grow staples such as wheat and rice because the Indian government, which runs the world’s biggest food welfare program, buys the crops at guaranteed prices which invariably go up every year.

Rain and hail hit the rapeseed crop in the tourist state of Rajasthan, which accounts for more than half of India’s rapeseed output. The crop also suffered a good deal of damage in Uttar Pradesh state and the central state of Madhya Pradesh, farmers said.

The untimely rains have also brought misery to potato and chickpea farmers in the northern and some central parts of the country, Panwar said.

“Even the farmers who have been able to salvage their crops, will find it difficult to get reasonable prices due to quality issues,” said Dharmendra Malik, a farm leader from Uttar Pradesh.

— Mayank Bhardwaj reports for Reuters from New Delhi.

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