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By Curtis Galbraith

Agriculture

Toews says farmers planning for 2022 after a tough 2021

Dec 19, 2021 | 8:00 AM

The MLA for Grande Prairie-Wapiti says 2021 has been “a mixed bag” for agriculture.

Travis Toews says the drought is the biggest story of the year, but adds some commodity prices have been at what he calls “unprecedented levels” and those farmers who did get a crop had a good year.

He thinks agriculture has a lot of promise.

“It would appear that commodity prices are going to stay high at least in the short and intermediate term,” said Toews.

“Hopefully, we can grow a good crop in our region, the Peace Region, as well as the province overall next year and take advantage of these excellent commodity prices because, at the same time, our costs are going up.”

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Toews says the drought meant yields were way down in 2021.

He tells EverythingGP, his family’s beef operation near Beaverlodge had about one-third of the feed supply it would get in a normal year.

He adds what he describes as “a generational drought ” was especially tough for producers who ended up having to pay out forward contracts for their crops after being hit with drought and rising commodity prices.

“I can’t stress and overemphasize how tough that is on local farmers in the region.”

“Again, these high commodity prices are very welcome, and it looks like they are going to hold into next year and so we are really hopeful that we’ll be able to grow a good crop (and take advantage of) these high commodity prices for next year,” he explained.

Toews says farmers are making plans for next year.

“Hopefully, they had their crops insured. We pushed AFSC, over the course of the summer and fall, to assess crops as quickly as possible so that farmers could benefit from the insurance that they’ve taken.”

“Hopefully most are going to be able to plan for next year and hopefully get a great crop into these prices.”

Toews says AgriRecovery did bring some relief for livestock producers who had to buy feed and is hoping that, along with crop insurance, helped the primary producers.