Photo by EverythingGP staff.

By Curtis Galbraith

Agriculture

Variable yields, good quality for this year’s Peace Region crop

Oct 20, 2023 | 4:31 PM

Nearly all the harvest has finished in the Peace this year.

Valhalla producer and Grain Growers of Canada chair Andre Harpe says while the cereals ripened and were harvested quickly, people had to wait longer to combine canola.

He thinks the wildfire smoke held things up.

“Nobody really knows. That’s just as far as we can tell. It wasn’t curing the canola, it just wasn’t turning. It just sat and wasn’t really doing anything.”

Harpe says yields were variable.

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“I’m hearing (there are) parts of the Peace that had extremely good yields. Where I farm, we didn’t get quite as much rain, so our yields were probably average to below average, so it was really variable as far as that part went.”

“The nice part was we were able to harvest fairly efficiently, fairly quickly.”

Harpe adds that there is a high-quality crop this year.

“I have heard nothing but good news as far as grades (are concerned). That was the nice thing. We had very little rain during the harvest season, so the grades didn’t get affected.”

“We really haven’t had a killing frost yet, so that also affects the grade. Everything came off, I think, in really good shape.”

As far as prices, Harpe says markets have fallen off the last little while. He says it isn’t like it was two years ago, but there is also less uncertainty in the world.

Harpe notes input prices have stabilized, although they are quite high. He thinks farmers should pay attention to being able to source inputs for next year.

He adds a lot of farmers are busy putting down fertilizer and hauling their crop to market.