(GoRealNewsNow.com) – Crops in one of Canada’s main farming regions – Southern Alberta – are dying due to the record-dry spring, with some farmers already predicting “zero production” this year.
Areas south of Calgary, Alberta’s biggest city, have seen “little to no measurable precipitation since mid-April,” reports Canadian news outlet Global News.
An Agricultural Moisture Situation issued by the authorities on June 6 said both the fall and the spring had been dry, thus failing to “recharge soil moisture.” As a result, many farming areas in Southern Alberta are experiencing a 50-year moisture low.
“They [the crops] are dying essentially. It’s something that we’ve never experienced before. We’ve had dry conditions later in the season but to have it at the end of May, beginning of June like this is unprecedented,” commented Stephen Vandervalk, vice president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.
“We are out a third of our crop as of today, for sure, and every single day it’s just nose diving. Every day now we are probably losing 5 percent of our yields, so if we don’t get rain for another week, then half a crop, maybe, is in the cards,” said the fourth-generation farmer.
Vandervalk added a grasshopper infiltration was exacerbating the drought.
“We are trying to spot spray areas because otherwise what happens (is) you will lose your entire crop. Zero. Bare to the ground,” he said.
The farmer emphasized the single factor saving Alberta from a crop catastrophe as it had in the 1930s was improved farming practices.
“Farming techniques have changed so much that if we were experiencing what we have in the last six years, 30 or 40 years ago, southern Alberta would be a dust bowl,” Vandervalk said.
“We are on the road to zero production here in this area south of Calgary to about Fort Macleod,” he explained.
According to the authorities of Foothills County, many ranchers aren’t grazing their cattle since there isn’t enough grass. Their livestock still feeds from winter storage.
“Once those start to be depleted… they will either be buying feed or looking for other pastures,” said Delilah Miller in High River.
After the news of historic anticipated wheat failures in Kansas, farmers in Alberta, Canada, are now warning of "zero wheat production." Soil moisture is so low, crops are dying in the ground. "It’s something that we’ve never experienced before." https://t.co/BTM1m9vMYw
— Nate Bear (@NateB_Panic) June 12, 2023
