It is what it is – farming – Serving agriculture the basic industry
Looking back to August 2019 amid a three-year so-called drought, with crops suffering more so in some areas than others, and then the rains came, delaying the harvest 2019. Of course not to be outdone, Old Man Winter, well still fall ‘19 dumped snow on most of Manitoba farming country leaving fields wet, soggy, and in some cases frozen. Farmers struggled with those wet fields, some waiting for the frost to take off the remainder of their crops.
Videos and still images dotted the Twitter timelines showing different stages of harvest, horror pictures of burying equipment in mud and snow, and then victory laps of some finishing their 2019 harvest.
While many finished, others didn’t, and millions of acres in Western Canada remained in the fields’ — lots of corn, canola and soybeans to the chagrin of the industry. The hashtag #harvest19 became delayed, and farmers proudly took their equipment out there and started harvested as soon as possible after Christmas.
I remember Jason Hildebrand of Boissevain posting the images, moving and still, of stopping his 2019 harvest on a Saturday, May 30, and seeding that same Monday. He realized after combining 700 acres of his 1,200 acres of over-wintered canola, some grading No. 1 and slowly dropping in quality the warmer it got.
Somewhere in the middle of June, he torched the remaining 500 acres after Manitoba Crop Insurance gave him the go-ahead after weeds took over the canola. It didn’t take him long to put canola right back into the same fields, an unusual practice, but a way to combat the volunteer canola. It is looking good.
Subsequent flooding of Southeastern Manitoba, then Rivers, MB downpour and the water dam was threatening to give, and more crops were succumbing to torrential downpours and quick runoffs.
Tuesday, July 7, I took flight with retired farmer Don Schellenberg of Roland, MB, but still very much an active pilot, and he gave me a play-by-play description of what he called an above-average crop, except where excessive moisture and hail took their toll. It was hard to believe how good those crops looked from up in the sky. And that crop with adequate humidity and blazing heat and humidity grew and developed beyond measure. I’d drive into Winnipeg and swear that when I came back, the corn grew six inches taller, and the squeaking sound wasn’t my brakes.
On July 15, I sat down with Jennifer and Brunel Sabourin of St. Jean, MB, a husband-wife team that operate Antara Agronomy Services Ltd.
Brunel said, “Overall, I think we’re pretty good. There are a lot of fantastic looking crops. We had a few emergence issues on some fields, given the dry start to the spring. That late-season harvest caused later seeded crops where farmers did fieldwork in the spring, which led to some germination issues as we dried out the top ground a little too much to be able to put the crop in, in time. But overall, I think the conditions are pretty good. The cereals look fantastic. Most of the canola looks good. Corn is a little bit in stages; it looks good right now because of the heatwave, caught up. Come harvest time; once it starts drying down, it’ll be sort of an exercise in patience.”
Barring any other severe weather events, whether heavy rains, hail, wind or even an early frost, the crop standing is looking mostly above average.
The last word goes to my dear friend and world livestock consultant, and veterinarian Dr. John Carr now living and teaching in Australia said, and I quote from his latest email, “Of course – well to be boasting – none of the farms I look after [in China] have broken with ASF. But a couple of farms not following my instructions did. But unfortunately, farms in Vietnam and Ukraine I have lost – and then rebuilt successfully.”
My dear farmer friends and all suppliers and non-farmer friends remember what my friend and mentor Orion Samuelson said, “It is an honour to serve Agriculture, the basic industry. And if you eat, you are part of agriculture.” •