After touring flooded areas in northeast and east-central Saskatchewan, Provincial Agriculture Minister David Marit remained hopeful farmers will catch up with seeding.
Marit said he traveled there on three different occasions, observing conditions at Buchanan, Quill Lake, Wadena, Melfort, Tisdale, Birch Hills, and Prince Albert.
"We saw a lot of the devastation due to the flooding and met with a lot of the municipal councillors and Reeves, toured around the RMs and just showed us the damage they had, the impact it's going to have, and the challenges they're going to have around that," Marit said.
"Obviously, with seeding going on and some of their major arteries cut off like that, it's just about how quickly they could get some temporary work done in those situations so at least they can get farmers the ability to move their equipment across and things like that. But yeah, the flooding did a major impact in a lot of those areas in the provinces of Saskatchewan."
Marit is aware of several R.M.s applying to the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (PDAP).
"I'm sure, by the time it's all done, it's going to be in the millions of dollars." he said.
Asked whether the flooding will have an impact on overall crop production this year, Marit is of the "wait-and-see" mindset.
He explained during his first visit to the northeast about three weeks ago, he heard from farmers that frost was not out of the ground yet in some areas, but once it was out "a lot of the water soaked into the ground."
Some farmers said they would leave some acres unseeded, but that could change depending on how quickly fields will dry up, he added.
Marit believes over the next two weeks producers in those regions will catch up.
"If they see rain, obviously that's going to delay them, but if we see some nice warm weather like they're predicting for this week, you'll see a lot of acres going into the ground in virtually all over the province, which is good to see."
The last provincial crop report had seeding progress, province-wide, at 29 per cent,
Marit is looking forward to Thursday's crop report.
"I'm optimistic the number's going to be quite a bit higher."
