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Horrible fall harvest goes on and on Many producers may have to delay seeding because they need to combine first BY ALEXIS KIENLEN AF staff
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eith Degenhardt thought last year’s harvest was bad. But then 2016 came along. The pedigreed seed grower from Hughenden estimated only about 60 per cent of the acres in east-central Alberta had been harvested by the end of October. “People have ordered dryers and some are putting crops in bags in hopes that they will be able to get it into a dryer afterward,” said Degenhardt, who farms with his wife, son and daughter-in-law. In a good year, he usually finishes his harvest in late September or early October, depending on the size of his crop. But snow and intermittent showers kept him off his fields. He isn’t alone. Just 73 per cent of the harvest had been completed by the last week of October, said Mark Cutts, crop specialist with Alberta Agriculture’s Ag Info Centre in Stettler. It’s especially frustrating for producers since good moisture conditions in June and July had raised the prospect of bumper crops across the Prairies. “Some of the fields that we’ve taken off have had yields outside the norm, and they are some of the best yields we’ve seen,” said Degenhardt. “The problem is that we still don’t have all the crop off.”
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Battle lines drawn on allowing farm workers to unionize There’s agreement on issues such as overtime and exempting families from the labour code, but prospect of unionization is a flashpoint
Concerns about unions and how families would be affected sparked Bill 6 protests, like this one at the legislature, across Alberta a year ago. A working group has unanimously recommended families be largely exempt, but the labour relations committee was deeply split over the right to unionize and strike. FILE PHOTO BY JENNIFER BLAIR AF staff
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roducers remain at odds with the NDP government’s plan to include the right to unionize — and to go on strike — as part of its workplace safety legislation for farms and ranches. “In some areas, we did see some movement and we did get to resolutions,” said Gord Winkel, interim executive director of the Alberta Agriculture Farm and Ranch Safety Coalition (AgCoalition).
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“In other areas, it was clearly not acceptable to the industry to move forward with certain things. “Fortunately, the process allowed for that, and we were able to show that there was a lack of consensus and basically make the agriculture sector’s intent known.” Six technical committees (called tables) composed of farmers, union reps, safety experts, and others have been working since June to develop recommendations for employment standards, labour relations, and occupational health and safety regulations.
One of the biggest challenges has been finding common ground between producers and other committee members, said Winkel, who is also chair and industrial professor of engineering safety and risk management at the University of Alberta. “A lot of folks don’t understand agriculture,” he said, adding that as “understanding became stronger, those tables began to move forward in a better way.”
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