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Photo by Curtis Galbraith
By Curtis Galbraith
Agriculture

Supply lines for farmers still open

Apr 4, 2020 | 6:00 AM

The biggest concern for farmers during the pandemic is keeping supply lines open and maintaining grain and oilseed shipments.

Valhalla producer and Alberta Canola director Andre Harpe says commodity groups are keeping in touch with companies that supply things like seed and fertilizer.

“As far as we can tell right now if you’ve ordered seed and if you’ve ordered fertilizer, there should be no issues. The only issues that may pop up at a later date is if our supply lines do get interrupted because of, you know, even warehouse staff getting sick and warehouses having to shut down or the trucking lines having to shut down.”

Harpe says everything continues operating normally, including getting parts and getting seed cleaned.

He adds farmers were hoping to be out finishing combining of last year’s crop by now.

“Out in this area, we had very little crop combined, so we actually (had), I’m guessing, around 75 per cent of our crops are still out. In the Peace Country, I think I’m hearing numbers around 40 to 50 per cent in the whole area left to combine.”

Harpe says the snow in late March will mean it will mean a longer time for fields to dry out.

by Curtis Galbraith