Farmers are dealing with poor harvest conditions due to the high amount of rain that has fallen this month.
By Sept. 15, Brandon had received 74.7 millimetres of rain, a spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada told the Sun on Wednesday. The amount is equal to 173 per cent of average rainfall for Brandon — with the past five years never seeing more than 38.8 mm during the month.
The wet conditions are causing crop loss and delays in harvesting, several Westman farmers told the Sun this week.
“At this point, it (could be) six figures of loss. And that all happens in days,” Cassandra Lepp, a Rivers-area wheat and canola farmer, said in a phone interview Wednesday. “We have good crops out there, and they are disappearing.”
Canola crops can’t be cut due to moisture levels, Lepp said. She is waiting for dryer conditions before harvesting, but the crop is dwindling while time passes.
“It’s profit dropping on the ground.”
In the case of wheat, the family was forced to harvest while the wheat carried “severe high risk” of spoiling due to high moisture level, she said. Wheat in the field had been sprouting — degrading in quality — and the farmers chose to bring it in rather than risk having it continue sprouting and take on more rain.
“You get hit with huge discounts,” Lepp said. “We never had sprouted grain before. This has never happened in 50 years.”
“We’re racing the clock at three miles an hour with combines, so you can only go as fast as you can go.”
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