Alberta Farmers reviewing 2022 Crop Insurance Changes

Mar 14, 2022

Farmers are busy finalizing this year's cropping plans and reviewing their risk management plans.

Agriculture Financial Services Corporation manages the program.

Among the changes for 2022:

Silage Greenfeed Insurance - Lack of Moisture which includes a reduction in recorded precipitation by 1.0 mm when daily temperatures reach 30 C, and by another 2.0 mm for a total of 3.0 mm when temperatures reach 35 C. As well, the minimum moisture threshold has increased from 0.1 mm to 1.0 mm.

Straight Hail Insurance - The canola base rate has dropped from 1.75 per cent to 1.5 per cent. For yellow, green and other field peas base rates have increased from 1.5 per cent to 1.75 per cent. AFSC notes factors for these crops were adjusted to better reflect the expected losses for these crops based on analysis of the historical experience of the premiums collected and indemnities paid. Also note that fields that have had previous hail damage are not eligible for Straight Hail Insurance.

Weather Stations - One new weather station has been added at Wardlow, while the Violet Grove weather station has been decommissioned. Two weather stations, Dapp and Bow Island North, have been replaced with Pibroch and Winnifred respectively. Clients who had selected Violet Grove, Dapp or Bow Island North in the previous year can update their selected weather stations by completing a Change Request prior to April 30. Producers are encouraged to review the Weather Station Map at afsc.ca as weather stations can change.

Alberta Premium Reduction - for 2022 this has been discontinued due to extreme weather events of 2021. Last year, based on a healthy insurance crop fund reserve, AFSC was able to provide clients with a 20 per cent premium reduction on the majority of insurance premiums. The plan was to re-evaluate the premium reduction annually and adjust based on the events of the previous year. Due to the major weather events of 2021, claim payouts are predicted to be the highest in AFSC’s history. This will result in a significant decrease in the fund reserve, making the Alberta Premium Reduction unsustainable and the discontinuation of the initiative for 2022 and subsequent years.

April 30, is the last day to make changes to (including updating your Declared Acres), or cancel your crop insurance coverage.

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Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”