Help is on the way for prairie farmers dealing with excess moisture and flooding through the largest and fastest AgriRecovery relief package to date. Governments of Canada, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba, will make up to $450 million available to help farmers take immediate steps to protect and restore damaged cropland.
Under the Canada-Saskatchewan Excess Moisture Program (EMP), producers will receive $30 per acre in assistance to adopt measures to protect, rehabilitate and manage affected cropland.
"Having toured many of the flooded areas and seen the impact of the extremely wet conditions first-hand, we realized the urgent need for this additional support," Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Bob Bjornerud said. "This year has brought truly exceptional circumstances and I am pleased to work with the federal government to provide this support to help farmers in this difficult situation."
In addition to this assistance, existing federal-provincial Business Risk Management programs, such as AgriInsurance (crop insurance), AgriStability and AgriInvest, will significantly help farmers manage the impact of this natural disaster as the first lines of defence to address income shortfalls. Crop insurance customers can also receive existing Unseeded Acreage benefits of $50 per eligible acre, Establishment Benefits for crops that failed to establish as of June 20, and full yield loss coverage on crops that established and were flooded-out after June 20.
Saskatchewan Crop Insurance customers will not have to apply for this support unless established crop was flooded between June 20 and July 31. If a customer has lost crop due to flooding between June 20 and July 31, which was not included in a previously registered claim with Crop Insurance, then an EMP application will need to be completed for those additional flooded acres.
Producers not enrolled in Crop Insurance who could not get their land seeded by June 20 or lost crop because of flooding on or before July 31 will need to fill out an application.
Applications are available at RM offices. The deadline to apply is September 30.
Due to heavy persistent rain throughout the spring and early summer in Saskatchewan an estimated eight million acres of land has gone unseeded and another four million acres of seeded crop has been drowned-out due to excessive moisture.
