Leduc County on Tuesday declared a municipal state of agricultural disaster due to wet conditions throughout the growing season. Farmers lost one quarter of annually cropped acres due to moisture, according to administration. Between May 1 and Aug. 31, the region received between 367 and 478 millimetres of precipitation, with more than half of that amount falling in a two-week period in June. Such declarations do not automatically trigger government help, but they can open access to existing programs and raise awareness. Leduc County Mayor Tanni Doblanko says the agriculture industry should be supported by government like other industries, pointing to Ottawa getting involved in the layoffs at an Ontario steel plant. “We did talk about this in our council, about how limited the impact of this municipal state of agriculture disaster is, but how it actually should be triggering more opportunities around insurance, how it should be triggering with the government that our food-producing ability this year has been diminished,” Doblanko, who helps manage a cattle operation, told CTV News Edmonton. “How do we change the view of agriculture as a critical industry in our country, employing many people, creating billions of dollars?” She said other factors hurt farming revenues this year, including higher input costs like fertilizer and fuel, and smaller and lower-quality yields due to growing conditions. “I just hope that our urban neighbours understand: It doesn’t matter how well we farmed this year, it didn’t matter what quality seed we put in, it didn’t matter how we managed our fields. It was out of our hands. And yet we continue to farm year after year because we produce the food that feeds you, that feeds the country, that actually feeds the world,” Doblanko said. Harvest progress across the province According to the provincial government’s latest data, collected on Oct. 20, 92 per cent of major crops had been harvested in the Barrhead-Edmonton-Leduc-Drayton Valley-Athabasca region. At that time, 94.3 per cent of all Alberta crops had been harvested. While the south and central regions were nearly finished, the northeast and northwest regions still had about eight per cent of crops to harvest, and the Peace region had 19 per cent. In that area, cooler temperatures and moisture were impacting harvest. Twelve other counties, all located in the northeast and northwest regions, have declared an agricultural disaster. Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) said this number is “within the range” seen in previous years. “However, the provincewide total does not fully reflect the severity of conditions within individual municipalities. Each declaration represents significant agricultural challenges in the affected region, with real impacts on producers, rural communities, and local economies,” RMA spokesperson Andrew Lavers told CTV News Edmonton in an email. Although the province said harvest was “extending later than normal” in its Oct. 20 crop report, it said there was not enough data for five- and 10-year comparisons for that week. This year, Alberta’s agriculture ministry has extended the application deadline for AgriStability, a fee-based program that covers large declines in farm income for reasons like production losses, to Oct. 1 and increased interim payments from 50 per cent to 75 per cent. A spokesperson said the government “stand(s) with Alberta’s farmers and ranchers through these challenging conditions.” The next crop report is due on Oct. 30, compiled from data collected on Oct. 27. With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Connor Hogg
