Dry conditions hitting Alberta farmers hard

Dave Bishop, the director of the Alberta Wheat Commission and a farmer out of Barons, explained if he’s seeing the same dry crop conditions that Vulcan County has been experiencing.

“We’re at the point where we’re probably, at best, even if we get some rain, maybe half our normal crop on dry land. If we don’t get any rain here within the next week, then it’s probably just going to go downhill. It’s not looking very good. I would say our irrigation is good, but the dry land is not. And it’s not going to be good. It’ll never recover. It’s getting too late for a lot of it. If we do do get rain, we will get some crop. But if we don’t get any rain, we may have nothing on dry land.”

Bishop adds that if the dry conditions continue he could see an infestation of grasshoppers.

The counties of Foothills, Stettler and Paintearth have also recently declared agricultural disasters.