Drought Support for Saskatchewan Includes Allowing Low Yield Crops as Livestock Feed

Jul 02, 2025
By Jean-Paul McDonald
Assistant Editor, North American Content, Farms.com

Government Responds to Drought with Aid

The Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation (SCIC) is implementing urgent support for producers dealing with ongoing dry conditions. The federal and provincial agriculture ministers have announced changes that allow low-yielding crop acres to be salvaged for livestock feed through a doubled low yield appraisal threshold.

This policy encourages farmers to redirect crops with poor yield potential to be grazed, baled, or used as silage—providing much-needed feed to livestock producers. All qualifying acres must be put to approved alternate use before compensation and cannot be harvested. Farmers are advised to contact their local SCIC office before making changes.

“I’ve spoken with livestock and crop producers in Saskatchewan who are worried about the impact that dry conditions could have this year,” said Federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Heath MacDonald. “Changing the yield threshold will give them some breathing room, so they can make the best decisions for their operations.”

Saskatchewan Minister of Agriculture Daryl Harrison echoed that the initiative, used successfully in 2021 and 2023, supports timely, on-farm decisions.

Industry leaders including SARM, Saskatchewan Cattle Association, Stock Growers Association, and APAS have welcomed the update, noting it offers a lifeline during a period of severe feed shortages. Recent rains may help pasture in some areas, but hay production has been badly affected.

AgriStability support is also available, covering extra feed costs and production losses. The enrollment deadline for the 2025 program is extended to July 31, 2025. Producers can also apply for early financial support through the Interim Benefit option.

Forage Rainfall Insurance will provide payments to eligible producers starting July 15, with final claims processed by August 15 based on weather data.

Producers needing emotional support can access the Saskatchewan Farm Stress Line 24/7 at 1-800-667-4442.

This program is a shared effort between federal and provincial governments under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP).

Photo Credit: gettyimages-banksphotos

Video: From Students to Solutions | On The Brink: Season 2, Episode 14

Ask Canada’s most decorated soybean breeder his favourite part of the job and he doesn’t name a single variety. He names the students.

Istvan Rajcan is a professor of soybean breeding and genetics in the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph, where he has run the soybean breeding program for 28 and a half years. In that time he has developed 87 soybean cultivars, published 140 refereed papers and trained 51 graduate students. In 2025 he received the Public Sector Impact Award from the National Association for Plant Breeding.

He is also worried. In this episode he says Canada is at a crossroads, pointing to recent government cuts to plant breeding programs and to the facilities that support them. His prescription is structural. "Plant breeding funding formula has to be a long-term one," he says.

The formula he is defending is the public-private matching arrangement his program runs on. Private seed companies fund the work, provincial or federal money matches it, and the combined pool stretches each dollar further than either source could alone. At the National Association for Plant Breeding annual meeting in June, he says American public breeders were often surprised at how well that collaboration works in Canada.

He also describes how the people entering plant breeding have changed. His early graduate students came mostly from farms. More recently they include, in his words, "city kids who just became excited about genetics."

Topics covered:

Why public-private plant breeding funding in Canada needs a long-term

commitment rather than a larger one

How matching private seed company investment with provincial and federal

dollars multiplies research capacity

How the graduate student pipeline into plant breeding has shifted from

farm kids to city kids