Prairie drought drives Canada's canola, wheat production down more than 35%: StatsCan

Curtis McRae opens a half-emptygrain bin and picks up a handful of seeds.

"It's not pretty canola," he jokes.

The farmer from St. Andrews, Man., only managed to grow half the canola he expected this year. All of his grain crops suffered as the Prairies were battered by months of drought.

"They got dry enough thatthey stopped growing. That was something we haven't seen," he said in an interview with CBC last week."Throughout the season we knew we were in trouble."

The latest numbers from Statistics Canada show he's not alone.

This summer'sdrought drove down crop yields for the entire country, the federal agency says. Several majorgrains grown in Western Canada had the largest yearly yield decrease on record.

Canola production fell 35.4 per cent nationally, and wheat production was down 38.5 per cent, according to data released earlier this month.

Soybean production for the country as a whole wasdown 1.4 per cent, but in Manitoba, where the drought was the most severe, soybean yields fell 17.1 per cent. Barley and oat production also dropped significantly.

Worst drought in '50 to 60 years'

For McRae, whose farm is just north of Winnipeg, the little precipitation that might have saved his thirstysoybean croparrived as hail,wiping out that cropalong with his wheat.Hehad to claim crop insurance on almost all of his fields.

"This drought is the worst in 50 to 60 years," said Trevor Hadwen, an agroclimatespecialistwith Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, a federal department thatprovides advice to farmers to better handle extreme weather.

"It was all the way back to 1961 before we can see something even comparable."

While drought is a normal occurrence in Western Canada, it is becoming more widespread and severe, Hadwen said. This summer's dry spell stretched from Vancouver Island to northwestern Ontario.

Yields could have been even worse, he said, had it not been for improvements in farming practices.

"That's a benefit to all their management practices the science that goes into plant breeding and the varieties that are available toproducers this year," he said.

Even with farmers doing all they could to get the most out of their crops, though, they were working with increasingly dry soil.

The 2021 growing season was particularlyfraught on the Prairies, especially in Manitoba, because it followeda number of dry years.

Manitobaneeds above-average precipitation this winter and springto make up for that, Hadwen said.

So far, that hasn't been the case.

'Hotter, drier and more fiery Prairies'

On the Prairies, 99 per cent ofagricultural landis stilleither "abnormally dry" or in adrought situation, according to the November report from theCanadian Drought Monitor.

It's a sign that climate change is having an immediate impact on Canada's agriculture system, according to the executive director of the University of Winnipeg's Prairie Climate Centre.

"The models, the science, are playing out in real time," said Ian Mauro, an associate professor with the university's geography department. "This is serious stuff."

While it can be difficult to immediately draw a direct connection between climate change and a specific weather event, the drought is exactly what climate experts have warned about, Mauro said.

The science indicates this is exactly what you would expect to happen due to climate change.-Ian Mauro, Prairie Climate Centre, University of Winnipeg

"We can absolutely say that the science indicates that this is exactly what you would expect to happen due to climate change," he said.

"The science ...shows that we're going to have a hotter, drier and more fiery Prairies," he said. A worst-case scenario is the drought continuingyear after year.

A silver lining for farmers like Curtis McRae is that thepoor growing season led to a higher price for canola.

Still, he says he'scut his budget, holding off on buying any farm equipmentand instead prepping fertilizer for next year's crop.

"I don't think you can ever break a farmer's hope."

Read the Statistics Canada report: