'A heck of a lot of better than last year': Southern Alberta farmers say this year's crop looking average after poor 2023

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After a poor crop last year, Jason Schneider will take an average one.

Plenty of spring precipitation had raised hopes of a bumper crop this year in southern Alberta, but farmers say they’re now expecting average yields due to a dry, hot summer.

“Overall, definitely a heck of a lot better than it was last year,” said the Vulcan County farmer, who was combining peas Monday. “It would be pretty hard to be worse than last year.”

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Statistics Canada reported last December that in Alberta wheat yields decreased by almost 20 per cent last year because of dry conditions in parts of the province, including southern Alberta. 

Schneider said 2024 has been a rollercoaster of a year.

In February, frost was on the ground early and looked like 2024 was going to be a disaster, said Schneider. But then came plenty of rain and snow in March and April, with “beautiful” growing conditions right up till July, he added.

In Lethbridge, July was the 11th warmest and 29th driest it’s been there in the past 123 years, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada.

“July sent us a bit of a reminder of how cruel Mother Nature is because it just cooked everything,” said Schneider.

“We kind of had that potential of having one of our best years ever to a kind of average year.”

But compared to 2023, the current year is not bad at all, he said.

Other southern Alberta farmers agreed that this year’s crop looks like an average one.

“It’s not a terrible crop,” said Kevin Auch, another Vulcan County farmer. “It had a real potential for quite a well.”

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Schneider said farmers storing their crops won’t really be affected by a shutdown of Canada’s two major railway companies, which is looking more and more likely to start Thursday. Southern Alberta producers usually have enough storage space to bin their crops and wait for the best time to sell them, he said.

“It’s more market dependent when all that stuff starts to go to the elevator, and right now the market is pretty crappy,” said Vulcan County’s reeve, who will likely sit on his crop until around January in hopes of the market rebounding by then.

As soon as farmers start combining, prices drop by several dollars, trying to catch out farmers who need to get rid of crops off the combine, said Schneider.

“It’s kind of a shady game in my opinion, but it is what is,” he said.

The latest Alberta crop report, released Friday, notes that major crop yields on non-irrigated land are currently almost 27 per cent above the five-year average in southern Alberta, but farmers in the south have seen a few poor years lately, bringing down what average crop yields are.

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“It is important to remember that (the five-year average) is specific to that region’s historical yields as when compared to the rest of the province,” it points out.

The crop harvest was three per cent complete as of Aug. 13, on schedule with past years. Most of that progress has been in southern Alberta, with seven per cent of all crops harvested.

As farmers head into their fields with combines, hot weather will continue to bake their crops over the next week.

Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Terri Lang said southern Alberta farmers can expect above-average temperatures, in the high 20s to low 30s, in the next seven days.

But there will be pockets of moisture from showers and thundershowers, from moisture coming from the Gulf of California, she said.

“No real organized systems given widespread rain, also no big ridges of high pressure giving hot, dry conditions. It’s going to be a kind of a mix of those.”

The Canadian Drought Monitor, prepared by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, says abnormally dry and moderate drought conditions expanded in July across southern Alberta.

“Most of the region received less than 20mm of precipitation this month, and some south-central areas saw less than 10mm. Well-below normal precipitation combined with recurring heat events led to a decline in soil moisture and increased heat stress in crops,” it says in its monthly update, noting conditions as of July 31.

West of Lethbridge towards the Alberta-U.S. border has now been given a moderate-drought rating, as has the Brooks area. Abnormally dry conditions include the foothills, Calgary and towards Medicine Hat.

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