To get an idea of the financial toll extreme weather is taking on this country’s agriculture industry, look no further than the government of Saskatchewan’s books.
“We are going to see more droughts, more pests, the yields won’t be as good,” said Guillaume Lhermie, director of the Simpson Centre for Food and Agricultural Policy at the University of Calgary. But extreme weather – from drought to wildfires to “heat domes” to flash floods – has plagued farmers from coast to coast in recent years.
AFSC has warned that Alberta farmers can expect to see higher crop insurance premiums for the 2024 crop year, mainly due to the program’s financial losses in 2021 and 2022. “When we look at events like the ‘atmospheric river’ that happened in B.C., the hurricane impacts that have gone on in Atlantic Canada, or even the smoke damage from wildfires and how that’s affected crops, we need better risk management programs to help farmers have some sort of assurance that they can survive these kinds of climate change impacts,” Currie said.