The Federal, Provincial, and Territorial Agriculture Minister's Conference gets underway tomorrow night in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Agriculture Minister David Marit says a key issue of discussion for him going into the meetings is going to be the drought.
"I've travelled right across the south just in the last week. You know from Cypress Hills right over to almost Weyburn, right across the south. So I've seen it all, and it's not good out there. The entire province needs a rain. I just talked to a friend this morning in the southeast part of the province and his crop is looking good but they need a rain there as well."
He says if we don't get a rain we're going to see obviously crops going backwards.
"We're seeing that happen, and if we see the temperatures rise the way their forecasted by the weekend it's going to have a huge impact on some crops that are still holding in there."
Environment Canada is forecasting 30-degree-plus temperatures for the province starting on the weekend and all through next week.
Saskatchewan isn't the only province dealing with the drought, it's an issue right across the prairies.
According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Canadian Drought Monitor map as of June 30th most of the country is dealing with abnormally dry conditions but moderate to extreme drought
conditions can be found in the Prairies.
The report shows that at the end of June, 83% of the Prairie Region was classified as abnormally dry, or in moderate to extreme drought, including 90% of the region’s agricultural landscape.
Extreme drought covered 3% of the Prairie Region in June, up from 1% in May.
Officials note that the map only goes to the end of June and things have gotten progressively worse since then.
In BC drought-affected areas range from abnormally dry to extreme drought from Fort St. James to Smithers.
In Alberta, the drought map shows conditions range from abnormally dry to extreme with the extreme drought conditions now covering over 50% of the southern portion of the province, from south of Red Deer towards Medicine Hat and Lethbridge.
In Saskatchewan, the map shows that although conditions were less extreme than in Alberta, the province is dealing with a moderate to severe drought.
The southwestern corner reported concerns for water quality and quantity and a significant uptick in grasshopper populations. Nearly half of producers in the area were experiencing livestock water shortages by the end of June, and conditions have only got worse in July.
Manitoba generally is looking at dry conditions to moderate and severe drought.
The Canadian Drought Monitoring report also shows severe drought conditions developed west of Winnipeg, stretching from the U.S.- Canada border towards Lake Manitoba, with moderate conditions expanding into the Interlake region towards the western border to Saskatchewan with only 25 to 50% of normal precipitation reported in the last 3 months.
Yesterday, Marit sent a letter to Minister Bibeau asking for the federal government to do an Agri-Recovery assessment of Saskatchewan.
That's something that other provinces will be looking for as well.
Marit will be chatting with his Western counterparts to discuss their drought concerns prior to the FTP meeting so they can walk in with a unified approach.
Source : Pembinavalley online