Fewer Wild Rice Growers Sign Up For Crop Insurance

Fewer Wild Rice Growers Sign Up For Crop Insurance

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 15:16

There is less interest in a crop insurance pilot project for northern Saskatchewan wild rice growers this year than in previous years.

According to Saskatchewan Crop Insurance analyst Colleen Rooney, 130 producers signed up last year.

This year, the number is down to 92.

Rooney says the decline is partly due to harvesters leaving the industry. But she also says there are likely some producers who wonder if it’s worth paying the premiums after not receiving any payouts last year.

La Ronge grower and marketer Lynn Riese says he’s not interested in the crop insurance program, because it doesn’t pay much.

He also says producers with poor harvests can be shut out in a given year if they’re in a region that had good harvests.

Rooney says the possibility of calculating insurance payments on a lake-by-lake basis will be looked at — but she says that sort of approach will be more difficult because of all the harvest data that will have to be compiled for each lake.