Sask. farmers grapple with low wheat prices amid slow harvest

Gerrid Gust stands in a canola field near Davidson, Sask.

The final push of the growing season can be unpredictable.

Dallas Leduc never predicted harvest would drag out as long as it has.

“We are nowhere close to being even close to being done,” said Leduc, who farms in southern Saskatchewan near the community of Glentworth.

Crop insurance wrote off some of his durum wheat three months ago.

Drought matured Leduc’s fields faster than usual, and farmers in the area thought they might be done harvest early this year. But late rain in July and August caused some of those crops to regrow.

“It’s made for two crops in one field,” Leduc said, something he’s never experienced to this extent.“So you’ll have one crop that has been ready for 60 days before the next crop will be ready.”

Leduc is still waiting for the second round of crops to mature so he can combine. Once they’re ready, he estimates the regrowth could double his durum yields. However, the quality won’t improve, and neither will the price.

“I don’t know how to say it. It sucks,” Leduc said.

Wheat and durum prices are down substantially from three years ago due to farmers in other parts of the world experiencing very good growing seasons, according to Stuart Smyth, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of Saskatchewan.

Wheat production in Europe is at a 10-year high, Smyth said, while Ukraine, Russia, Argentina and Australia are also producing above-average yields.

“Globally, we’ve just got a lot of wheat being produced right now,” he said. “So countries that need to buy wheat have a lot of choice and can negotiate lower prices.”

Lower grain prices likely won’t translate to cheaper groceries, Smyth said. The cost of wheat is a very small factor in the overall price of a final product.

However, a dip in wheat prices will have a big effect on farmers’ budgets.Three years ago, Leduc sold his winter wheat for $16 a bushel. Last week, he said he sold the same crop for less than $6. He said he, like many farmers, can’t afford to hold onto the grain and wait for prices to improve.

“In the financial situation we are in, I’m pretty sure by the middle of June or July of next year, the bins will be completely empty. We’ll have to sell,” he said.

A tale of two harvests

Gerrid Gust, who farms near Davidson, Sask., finished harvesting his wheat earlier this month. He’s down to the last of his canola and should finish combining next week.

Unlike Leduc, Gust is on the cusp of a great yield.

“We might be in shape for one of the biggest crops we’ve ever grown,” he said.

Gust’s area managed to stave off any extreme drought. His crops were hit with a bit of hail late in the growing season, but nothing that will ruin his fields’ “excellent quality.”

“We’re in one of those Cinderella zones where we don’t get drought too often. We don’t get a boomer crop too often. It’s just pretty stable,” he said. “But we’re definitely on the high end of average, and quality is right up there this year.”

But even with Gust’s excellent yield, he expects wheat prices will influence his capital expenditures.

“It might be just a break-even, average or low-average year. So we’ll just stop spending money,” Gust said.

Wheat prices are just one more challenge in an agricultural landscape that has seen extreme drought and steep tariffs in the same growing season.

Like they always do, farmers will continue to roll with the punches.

“It’s the business that we’re in,” Gust said.