Saskatchewan announces 2022 Crop Insurance Program

Feb 23, 2022

Agriculture Minister David Marit says this year, Crop Insurance coverage will reach a record level due to higher commodity prices and increased yield coverages.

" The average coverage for 2022 is $405 per acre, an increase from $273 an acre in 2021. This represents a 48 per cent increase in coverage compared to last year. Due to this increase in coverage, the average total premium is also higher at $12.05 per acre, compared to $8.59 in 2021."

He adds the average premium rate is lower, due to the strong production in 2020, since there is a one-year lag when calculating premium rates, meaning that the 2021 production numbers will be used in 2023.

2021 marked a challenging year as producers faced extreme heat and a province wide drought.

Saskatchewan Crop Insurance reports claim numbers reached 30,000 for a total payout of $2.4 billion dollars.

The 30,000 claims up substantially from the five-year average of 7800 post-harvest claims annually.

Marit says the hot, dry conditions of last year resulted in the Province implementing a new heat adjustment factor for the Forage and Corn Rainfall Insurance Program.

"When temperatures reach 31 degrees Celsius or higher, precipitation amounts are reduced in the 'monthly per cent of normal' calculation. This adjustment helps recognize the impact of extreme heat on forage and corn yields."

Among the other program changes for 2022 changes to the Contract Price Option which allows producers to use their contract prices to blend with the Crop Insurance base price to establish a price that's higher and more reflective of the market value.

In 2022 the Contract Price Option will be available on all commercial crops,

The new crops being added include fababeans, Khorasan wheat, fall and spring rye, sunflowers, triticale, winter wheat, extra strong wheat, hard white wheat, all classes of chickpeas, caraway, irrigated dry beans and soybeans.

Marit compared some of the crop base prices that producers will see for 2022.

"Durum wheat in 2021 was insured at $6.94 in 2022 it will be insured at $11.16, which is an increase of about 161%. Oats in 2021, was insured at $3.39 a bushel, this year will be insured at $5.63 a bushel, which is an increase of 166%. Canola is $17.01 an increase of 142 per cent. Field peas will be $11.57 an increase of 154 per cent. While large green lentils will go from 29 cents in 2021 to 36 cents in 2022."

He notes establishment benefit values are also increasing this year due to the increases producers have seen in commodity and seed prices.

Producers have until March 31st to apply, reinstate or cancel their Crop Insurance contract.

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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.”