Rain ruins seeding for Man. farmers

Seeding by farmers in Western Manitoba might have come to an abrupt end, due to drenched fields.

Walter Finlay, who farms in the Souris area southwest of Brandon, has only managed to get seed into two-thirds of his fields.

The thunderstorms that walloped southern Manitoba over the weekend have left the rest of his fields too wet to get ontoand some of the seeded areas are likely ruined.

"A bunch of the stuff under water is definitely going to be dead. There is no question about it," he said.

'A bunch of the stuff under water is definitely going to be dead. There is no question about it.' Walter Finlay, Souris-area farmer

"Some of the stuff that was only under water for a day or two, it likely will survive. But we've got some that's under three feet of water and there will still be water there in the fall," he said.

The scenario is a dramatic change from earlier this spring when warm conditions in April meant farmers were seeding early and hoping for an excellent start to the season.

Premier Greg Selinger on Monday toured some of the areas most affected the weekend's downpour. More than 100 millimetres of rain fell in some parts of southern Manitoba, saturating the ground to the point where it couldn't absorb any more.

Emerson, near the U.S. border, declared a state of emergency Sunday due to flooded basements and roads.

Compensation for overland flooding

Selinger said Monday there would be programs available for the sodden communities and homeowners dealing with flooded land.

The province has doubled the cap for overland flooding compensation to $200,000 through the Disaster Financial Assistance Program.

However, people whosebasements were flooded from backed up sewers are not covered. They will have to rely on private insurance, Selinger said.

Doug Chorney, who farms near East Selkirk, said 20 per cent of his fields are under water. Crops such as canola will likely not recover, and he can't re-seed, he said.

"It's kind of funny, I've already re-seeded some crops that were flooded by the big rains that we had at the end of April, so, I'm running out of seeds," he said.

"Certified seed is very expensive and to go and partially re-seed fields is not really practical."

Chorney, who is also vice president of Keystone Agricultural Producers, Manitoba's largest farm group, said cereal crops could possibly recover, but not likely oilseeds.