ROCKY VIEW COUNTY— The supply chain in the Cochrane area remains intact as local farmers prepare for the seeding season.
Seeding, the planting of crops by farmers, has been largely unaffected by COVID-19, farmer Tim Harvie said.
“If you look out the window it looks terrible,” Harvie said with a laugh. “But that's not unusual. We’ve seen it before where April can be cold and snowy and it can change in heartbeat.”
Harvie runs a farm located southeast of Cochrane. The grain farm boasts wheat, barley and canola with a side of cattle.
Harvie has been in the agriculture industry for 40 years, he said, adding that every year brings unique triumphs and challenges for farmers.
Harvie said he hopes to begin seeding by the end of April— If the weather continues to warm up.
Farmers are feeling the effects of COVID-19, he said, but living on the farm, for the most part, they are practising social distancing. Harvie added that the biggest change has been not visiting friends or family or going to town as often.
“For farming our lives are like everyone else’s, but maybe better off because we’re already living out here on the farm,” Harvie said. “Seeding is a social isolation time of year.”
During seeding season Harvie said he will be on his own in the tractor for ten days to two weeks.
The only major effect he felt from COVID-19 is getting supplies like fertilizer and seed, he said. However, the products can be delivered or picked up by truck and involves zero social contact.
Harvie said he is ideally hoping to see warm dry weather for seeding. There are excellent moisture levels in the region, he said, because it was a wet summer last year.
The soil is full of water and a ton of snow will hopefully create excellent topsoil conditions.
Last season most farmers were able to get everything finished when the growing season came to an end, he said, but parts of the province were left unharvested because of the horrible conditions last fall.
“It was a very frustrating harvest with on-again/off-again snow and rain,” Harvie said. “You would combine for a couple of days and wait for a week— It was a really challenging year for most farmers.”
Harvie had all of his grain off the field by the end of October last year.
He said he hopes the wet summer last year will help may grain this year. Especially because the 2018 and 2019 summers were incredibly dry.
His farm has had snow since September and he is now waiting for the winter weather to break so he can hook up his equipment and begin seeding, Harvie said.
He remains optimistic about the upcoming season because he has rarely missed seeding on schedule.
“Now we just need some warm, dry weather to melt all this snow and dry out the topsoil so we can pull in the field and go to work,” Harvie said.
