'Desperate for rainfall': Farmers, ranchers in southwest Sask. reeling from another dry year

A rural municipality in southwest Saskatchewan is sounding the alarm as the worst dry conditions in almost a decade push crops and livestock to the brink.

The RM of Big Stick, located close to the Alberta border about 300 kilometres southwest of Saskatoon, has declared a local state of emergency, and more municipalities may follow as producers face worsening arid conditions. 

"This is year nine of a drought for us," Quinton Jacksteit, the RM's reeve and a longtime grain farmer, said in an interview. "Our crops, they're desperate for rainfall.

"Some of our early crops, like our barley, it's really, it's dying in the field as we speak."

Jacksteit said the state of emergency was necessary to get the provincial government's attention and start conversations about better financial assistance for producers.

"This [year] is probably the worst, simply because we're in the middle of June and we're already writing crops off, like this shouldn't be happening at this stage," Jacksteit said.

He said that even if rain comes now, the damage is already done.

"It's hard to have that optimism anymore. I see it in my neighbours that it's very stressful and there's a lot of hurt, "he said. "We need a crop because this year there's going to be financial losses, and they're going to be significant."

Ross Martin, a councillor for the RM of Big Stick and a cattle rancher, said he's only seen half an inch (around 12 millimetres) of rain fall this spring, and the grass is around four inches (about 10 centimetres) tall.

"The cows don't have anything to graze on," he said. "If we don't get some more moisture, they're going to run out of grass before the end of the summer, that's for sure."

Martin said he will have to graze his cattle on hay fields normally reserved for winter feed, which he worries will not be enough.

"Everybody's worried," he said. "A lot of my friends on the RM are also farmers, and their problem is their crops. They've emerged, but they're only staying about four inches high. And so they're not going to have anything to combine if we don't get some rain."

Both Martin and Jacksteit said the current crop insurance programs are not enough, especially after almost a decade of dry conditions. They said insurance no longer covers the true value of their expenses.

"We definitely need changes to our program with climate change and everything being what it is," Jacksteit said. "Our government needs to be looking at these programs and … they need to be updated."