Summer rains slow down sask harvest

REGINA – A steady stream of customers give the impression business is good at the Lincoln Gardens tent at Wednesday’s Regina Farmer’s Market, but heavy rain and an early frost has affected supply and price.

“Cucumbers went up for sure; beans went up a bit,” said Wayne Gienow, owner of Lincoln Gardens, located near Lumsden.

As consumers start thinking about Thanksgiving, they’ll also find another product is hard to come by. This year, 90 percent of Gienow’s pumpkin crop has been wiped out.

“It’s a huge hit. I supply most of the province for Loblaws with pumpkins,” Gienow said. 

With supply coming from other provinces, Gienow said it won’t affect the consumer as much as it’ll affect him as his profit this year is down about 40 per cent.

“The upside to the whole year is the demand is so high, we’ve been really busy and everything we have has been sold,” he said. 

Saskatchewan farmers are almost half completed harvesting, but normally they’d be 60 to 70 per cent done.

“It’s a bit of a triple whammy – poor yields, poor quality and poor prices. So it’s certainly not going to be a banner year and farm incomes are going to be down quite a bit,” explained Blair Rutter, executive director of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.

However, farmers are trying to focus on the positives.

“The canola crop this year to last year is pretty close to the same. The price might be down a little bit, but it’s still early in the year and this is the time of year with all the harvest pressure, where the prices are down a little bit anyway,” said Regina-area farmer, Dale Heenan. 

Heenan said compared to last year’s bumper crop, this year’s yield looks dismal, but he estimates it’s still about average. Another major concern for producers is what this winter will bring.

“It’s just been a really challenging year with all this rain and hopefully the tap shuts off by winter, because if we get a lot of snow, spring is going to be a mess in this province,” said Gienow.