SCIC announces 2021 crop insurance

Feb 26, 2021

The program for the upcoming season has several changes

Staff Writer

Farms.com

Saskatchewan farmers can expect higher coverage for 2021 with the new Crop Insurance Program through Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation.

SCIC representatives recently announced the program, which has several changes for the upcoming season.

“We want to make sure that the programs that we have available for producers are relevant to them. We want to make sure the risk management tools that we have are meaningful and help them operate their farm,” said Jeff Morrow, acting president and CEO of SCIC.

One change to the 2021 program includes increased coverage.

“As far as the average coverage that producers will see for 2021, the average is $273 per acre and that's up from $224 last year. So, that's a significant increase, about a 22 per cent increase in coverage,” said Morrow.

Because of the increased coverage this year, premiums are increasing to $8.59, up from $7.40 in 2020, said Morrow.

Other changes include increases to the establishment benefit values for canola, lentils, chickpeas and corn.

“The establishment benefit value for canola is now $70 per acre, for large green lentils it’s $50 per acre, red lentils $30 per acre, large Kabuli chickpeas at $65, small Kabuli chickpeas at $45 and corn at $95 per acre,” Morrow told Farms.com.

Forage insurance for producers is also receiving an update.

“Forage producers will see an increase in the native forage establishment benefit coverage. So that's for forage acres that are seeded and failed to establish. This establishment benefit is increasing from $75 up to $200 per acre. For other forage species, like tame species, it's increasing from $70 to $90 and for sweet clover it's going from $55 per acre up to $65,” said Morrow.

Producers can also choose how to insure their tame hay acres in 2021. They can choose between the Forage Rainfall Insurance Program or the Multi-Peril Crop Insurance Program.

Now that the program is announced, producers have until March 31 to apply or make changes to insurance contracts and if they have questions, they can contact the SCIC offices.

Liudmyla Liudmyla/iStock/Getty Images Plus photo

Video: Wheat Yields in USA and China Threatened by Heat Waves Breaking Enzymes

A new peer reviewed study looks at the generally unrecognized risk of heat waves surpassing the threshold for enzyme damage in wheat.

Most studies that look at crop failure in the main food growing regions (breadbaskets of the planet) look at temperatures and droughts in the historical records to assess present day risk. Since the climate system has changed, these historical based risk analysis studies underestimate the present-day risks.

What this new research study does is generate an ensemble of plausible scenarios for the present climate in terms of temperatures and precipitation, and looks at how many of these plausible scenarios exceed the enzyme-breaking temperature of 32.8 C for wheat, and exceed the high stress yield reducing temperature of 27.8 C for wheat. Also, the study considers the possibility of a compounded failure with heat waves in both regions simultaneously, this greatly reducing global wheat supply and causing severe shortages.

Results show that the likelihood (risk) of wheat crop failure with a one-in-hundred likelihood in 1981 has in today’s climate become increased by 16x in the USA winter wheat crop (to one-in-six) and by 6x in northeast China (to one-in-sixteen).

The risks determined in this new paper are much greater than that obtained in previous work that determines risk by analyzing historical climate patterns.

Clearly, since the climate system is rapidly changing, we cannot assume stationarity and calculate risk probabilities like we did traditionally before.

We are essentially on a new planet, with a new climate regime, and have to understand that everything is different now.