On March 22, the federal government announced it would develop such a strategy, calling it “an opportunity to discuss how we can address freshwater-related threats and opportunities,” protect freshwater ecosystems, and secure water for communities and the economy, according to a news release.

The Canada Water Agency, which was repurposed in 2024 as a stand-alone freshwater management agency separate from Environment and Climate Change Canada, will spearhead the strategy’s development.

While the announcement was scant on details of what such a strategy might look like, it said the agency will work with provinces and territories, First Nations, Inuit and Métis partners, “stakeholders across sectors” and the public.

Farmers should be among those consulted, the CFA said in a statement to Glacier FarmMedia.

“Water security is absolutely critical for the future of Canadian farmers. Farmers in different regions of Canada have been devastated by water issues over the past few years, such as the floods in B.C., or the ongoing long-term drought in the Prairie provinces,” a federation spokesperson said.

“A lack of water has severe negative impacts on any type of farm, no matter what they grow or raise.”

Prioritizing food security, agriculture

The strategy should protect farmers and mitigate the effects of water-related events. It should also secure predictable access to water so farmers can maintain food production — for example, through effective water management policies and investment in water infrastructure, CFA said.

“Farmers need to make it clear that food security and agriculture production should be prioritized if there was any issues with access to water.”

“Farmers are also on the front-line of climate change, dealing with the on-ground realities of water-related events,” CFA added. “They have experience and knowledge that will be critical in developing this strategy.”

While the announcement made no specific mention of the agriculture industry, the sector will have an opportunity to share its views during the public engagement process, “recognizing that freshwater is fundamental to our economy, powering industries, agriculture, and the growth of communities,” a federal spokesperson told Glacier FarmMedia.

The federal government has not yet set timelines for consultations, but said those will be announced “in the coming months.”

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This seasonal storage underpins water security across much of the country. Prairie agriculture depends heavily on mountain snowpack for irrigation. The Great Lakes basin relies on snowmelt to sustain spring inflows that support navigation, ecosystems and freshwater withdrawals. Hydropower systems in British Columbia and Quebec depend on snow accumulation and melt timing in upland watersheds.

WHY IT MATTERS: Farmers on the Prairies rely on mountain snowpack for irrigation, the Great Lakes basin relies on snowmelt to sustain spring inflows, and hydroelectricity systems in B.C. and Quebec also depend on snow accumulation in upland watersheds.

For decades, scientists and water managers have relied on snow water equivalent (SWE) to measure this winter water reservoir. SWE estimates how much liquid water snowpack would produce if melted instantly. It is physically intuitive and remains central to seasonal water forecasting.

But climate change is altering not only how much snow falls, but where snowpack persists and how long it lasts. Warmer winters are bringing more rain instead of snow, more frequent mid-winter melt events and shorter snow-cover duration. In many regions, peak snowpack now arrives earlier. Snow cover is becoming more intermittent, particularly during early winter and spring transitions.

These changes expose a limitation in traditional SWE measurements at large spatial scales. As temperatures rise, snow may disappear across large portions of a landscape while remaining deep in isolated patches. Under such conditions, the average snow water equivalent can appear stable even though the snow-covered area has shrunk substantially.

To address this limitation, colleagues and I have introduced a complementary metric called snow water availability (SWA). Rather than averaging snow water across an entire area, SWA estimates how much water exists within the portion of the landscape that is covered with snow. The metric combines SWE with satellite measurements or climate reanalysis estimates of the fraction of snow cover over the landscape. The result is a measure particularly sensitive to patchy snow, a condition that is becoming more common in a warmer climate.

Snow water availability

Using our SWA metric, we conduct a large-scale analysis across Canada and Alaska and have found pronounced differences in how snow water is changing. In northern and eastern regions, snow water availability has increased in recent decades. In some Arctic and sub-Arctic areas, reduced sea ice and warmer air temperatures enhance atmospheric moisture, increasing snowfall in northern regions.

However, in Western Canada, especially within the Rocky Mountains, significant declines in SWA are emerging in mid-elevation mountain headwaters. These regions feed major river drainage systems, including the Saskatchewan, Fraser and Columbia river basins.

The response of mountain snowpack to warming is strongly elevation-dependent. High alpine zones, where winter temperatures remain well below freezing, can retain relatively stable snowpacks. Low elevations may already experience intermittent snow.

However, mid-elevation transitional zones, where winter temperatures frequently hover near freezing, are especially climate-sensitive. Small temperature increases can shift precipitation from snow to rain, shorten snow-cover duration and accelerate melt timing and rate.

This creates an important asymmetry. Although overall, SWA has increased across Canada and Alaska between 2000 and 2019, gains in sparsely populated northern regions do not compensate for losses in southern and western headwaters where water demand is highest.

In addition, mountain regions function as natural water towers. When snow storage declines there, the effects propagate downstream through entire river basins. Where snow disappears can matter more for water supply reliability than how much accumulates elsewhere. The geography of loss matters.

Uneven snowpack

The impacts can be amplified when declines in western headwaters coincide with widespread but less statistically pronounced decreases downstream. Combined, these patterns influence drainage basins that support a large share of Canada’s population and economic activity.

Historical events underscore this vulnerability. The 2015 Western Canada snow drought reduced streamflow originating in Rocky Mountain headwaters, stressing municipal systems, agriculture and aquatic ecosystems. During the winter of 2011-2012, reduced snowpack in southern Ontario and Quebec contributed to depressed Great Lakes water levels, affecting shipping and water management.

Climate variability adds further complexity. Large-scale ocean–atmosphere patterns can amplify or temporarily offset warming effects from year to year. Some winters remain snow-rich; others are dominated by rain-on-snow and/or mid-winter melt events. But long-term warming increases the likelihood of SWA loss in patchy snow regimes across climate-sensitive elevations.

Despite its advantages, our proposed SWA is not free of uncertainty. Snow observations remain sparse in remote northern and high-elevation regions. Satellite products are affected by cloud cover, vegetation and polar nights.

Climate reanalysis rely on modelling assumptions that vary among models and products. While basin-scale trends can be detected with reasonable confidence, uncertainty increases at finer spatial scales, where slope orientation, vegetation, terrain details and microclimate greatly affect SWA.

As water management decisions increasingly require sub-basin precision, improving spatial resolution and physical realism in snow monitoring becomes essential. Future research will require improved satellite observations, enhanced land-surface modelling and expanded ground-based monitoring networks.

In a warming climate, understanding how much snow exists, where it persists, how fragmented it becomes and how quickly it disappears will be central to anticipating water supply risks.

Canada’s snowpack is not simply shrinking or growing; it is becoming more uneven. And in an uneven landscape, the location of loss can matter more than the total amount of gain.

Ali Nazemi is an associate engineer of building, civil and environmental engineering at Concordia University in Montreal.

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“The number of days over 30 C and nights over 20 C has been close to a record breaker for us, and it’s really hampered yield,” said Mark VanOostrom, supply manager for Northeast Ontario and East with WD Potato, at the Potato Field Day and Trade Show last week.

He predicts a 20 per cent yield reduction is likely, with some fields seeing up to 50 per cent loss.

“There’s a lot of variability from field to field, grower to grower, and variety to variety.”

Why it matters: Along with record-breaking high temperatures, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada reported that 71 per cent of the country reached the abnormally dry or moderate to extreme drought classifications by the end of July.

While the hot, dry weather reduced the impact of late blight this season, Dr. Eugenia Banks said producers were also scouting for pink eye and Potato Virus Y (PVY), which thrive in dry, hot conditions, as well as heat stress indicators such as leaves folding in on themselves.

“We haven’t seen a lot of disease in the canopy, on top of heat stress and drought stress, we’ve seen some early die,” VanOostrum said. “Any sort of soil disease that could be there is not helping matters, but from a disease standpoint, we’re going fairly well.”

Environmental issues, such as speckle browning, brown centres in the tuber, and heat necrosis – which is rare in Ontario – were also on VanOostrum’s radar.

He also mentioned that stem-end defects, a buildup of sugar at the stem during storage, could be a concern.

“Some of the problems from heat and drought stress crops are early sprouting. We need to understand that those fields aren’t meant for long-term storage,” he said. “And we need to put our CIPC on quicker than we normally would.”

CIPC is chlorpropham, a chemical used to inhibit potato sprouting during storage, especially at warmer temperatures.

VanOostrum suggested that recent rainfall may assist later-planted fields, especially those with ideal soil management, in reducing the impact of a poor yield to an average one.

“Some of these varieties may rejuvenate and pick up some fertilizer that hasn’t been used yet,” he suggested. “But a week from now (early September), we’re thinking about top killing and getting ready for storage.”

Tyler Beattie, a sixth-generation producer at John Beattie Farms in Alliston, said their irrigation pumps worked overtime this season. He’s optimistic that the recent drop in temperatures will help improve harvest quality, even with an expected 20 per cent yield decline.

“Usually, a smaller crop yields a better-quality potato,” Beattie said. “We’re getting those (cooler nights) now in the most important time (to get) the bulking and skin set needed for storing and gravity, which Frito Lay loves.”

Initially, his digs showed gravity (plant density) levels at 14 to 14.5, but a week of cooler temperatures bumped that to 17, far closer to the 18 to 19 gravity level favoured by processors.

The recent two to three inches of rain and cooler temperatures could help the unirrigated land crop increase residual fertilizer uptake, he said, and, along with a slight harvest delay, could make all the difference.

“It was going to be a really sad story about a month ago, and I think it’s going to be okay,” Beattie said.

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The most unusual looking machine at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show this year had to be the autonomous irrigation system from 360 Yield Center, Regional sales manager Loren Weaver talks about the system and how it works.

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Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz said water license holders had signed new memorandums of understanding covering four river basins in the southern half of the province.

Alberta, which produces most of Canada’s oil, natural gas and beef, plus big wheat and canola harvests, opened water-sharing negotiations among license-holders for the first time in two decades as it entered its fourth year of drought this year.

The province relies on melting snow and precipitation for most of its water supply and has allocated water since 1894.

Under the new agreements, municipalities will voluntarily reduce water consumption by 5-10 per cent, Schulz said, while industry will use the minimum amount of water needed for reliable operations.

Irrigation districts, which account for 46 per cent of Alberta’s water allocation, have also agreed to use less by allowing other water users to receive their share and then dividing up what is left.

The level of Alberta’s snowpack – the snow that accumulated over the past winter – in the last week of April will be key to determining when the water-sharing agreements will need to be activated, Schulz said.

“These agreements will only be implemented or activated if they are needed, and they will be regularly adjusted as drought conditions change,” she told a news conference.

Some municipalities had already begun proactively reducing water use, she added.

As of the end of March, 66 per cent of Canada was classed as abnormally dry or in drought, according to Agriculture Agri-Food Canada, a slight improvement from February.

Schulz said Alberta appeared to have more water available this year than in 2001, the last time water-sharing negotiations took place.

Alex Ostrop, chair of the Alberta Irrigation Districts Association who farms in the upper Oldman river basin in south-western Alberta, expects to receive roughly half the usual water allocation.

“(That) will have a significant operational and economic impact on each affected irrigation farmer and they have spent the spring making tough decisions with respect to cropping and rotation,” Ostrop told reporters.

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The severe conditions have prompted Alberta to open water-sharing negotiations among license-holders for the first time in two decades, hoping to salvage output from two of its biggest industries.

Alberta, which relies on melting snow and precipitation for most of its water supply, has allocated water since 1894. That system prioritizes those who have held licenses the longest, although holders rarely exercise that right.

Alberta’s water talks underline the difficult compromises facing resource-rich regions adapting to extreme weather. Hydrologists say the future will bring Alberta more rain instead of snow due to climate change, which will strain summer water supplies.

The province produces most of Canada’s oil, natural gas and beef, plus big wheat and canola harvests, much of which it exports.

Irrigation to grow crops in dry areas accounts for 46 per cent of Alberta’s water allocation, with oil and gas using 10 per cent.

Reuters spoke with more than a dozen farm, energy and government officials and found those industries preparing for the drought to potentially scale back production and raise costs.

Drought could cause double-digit declines in Alberta’s wheat yields, based on crop production data from the past two decades. Oil producers are making costly contingency plans to store more water on site and truck water across the province.

Brad Deleeuw, who manages the 5,500-head Delta Cattle feedlot near Coaldale, Alberta, said the impact of water scarcity “could be huge.”

Deleeuw will prioritize watering cattle over irrigating his wheat, corn and barley, but that shift will likely reduce yields.

“You’d go from a black situation to a red situation pretty quick,” Deleeuw said, referring to financial losses.

If he must import significantly more expensive cattle feed this summer from the U.S. to make up for smaller Canadian crops, Deleeuw said he would have to reduce how many cattle Delta fattens for slaughter by Cargill and JBS.

Drought contributed to Canada’s beef herd shrinking this year to its smallest on record, according to Statistics Canada.

Snow water equivalent, which measures water content of mountain snowpack, was down 40 per cent as of March 5 from a year earlier in southern Alberta’s St. Mary River basin. The nearby Waterton basin was down 27 per cent, according to provincial and federal government data.

Crop hit

Some 70 per cent of Canada is abnormally dry or in drought, according to the government, with the driest conditions in Alberta and British Columbia.

Alberta’s largest-ever water-sharing talks could result in major consumers agreeing in early April to share water voluntarily with others downstream, environment ministry spokesperson Ryan Fournier said. If conditions remain dire, the province could declare an emergency and is working on a plan involving additional steps, Fournier said.

In 2001, the last time water-sharing negotiations happened, Alberta’s durum wheat yield was 22 bushels per acre, down 37 per cent from the previous five-year average, according to Statistics Canada. In dry 2021, spring wheat yield fell 35 per cent while barley yield dropped 36 per cent year-over-year. The vast majority of Alberta’s grain grows on dry land, not irrigated land.

Alex Ostrop, who farms near Lethbridge, is bracing to make do with much less water to irrigate fields. In 2001, his district’s water allocation was eight inches per acre or 38 per cent less than what Ostrop used last year.

“Commodity prices are down generally – (this year) would be a double whammy of lower commodity prices and reduced yields,” Ostrop said.

Costly crude

For oil companies, dry conditions may elevate costs by forcing them to shift drilling to sites with water access or to truck water, said Tristan Goodman, CEO of the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada. Companies will not drill if wells get too expensive, he said.

Oil producers are renting on-site water storage structures known as C-rings and other swimming pool-sized spaces, drilling company Trican Well Service said.

“You’re seeing customers start to really think about how they’re going to be managing water months in advance – they just haven’t had to worry about that before,” Trican CEO Bradley Fedora told analysts in February.

For now, parts of Alberta and British Columbia with the most conventional drilling and fracking have manageable water levels, Goodman said.

Drilled wells did not decline in the dry years 2001 and 2017, according to data from industry group Enserva.

Shell is putting water contingency plans in place for its Alberta wells, spokesperson Stephen Doolan told Reuters, declining to give details. Suncor Energy told analysts the drought has prompted it to plan a water-treatment plant in its oil sands operations for the end of this decade.

With Alberta possibly heading to a drier future, the province is spending C$933 million to expand irrigation. That means Alberta will spread limited water supply over 230,000 additional acres, but the upgrade will reduce evaporation by converting open canals to pipelines, Alberta Agriculture Minister RJ Sigurdson said.

Oil and gas producers are maximizing efforts to store and recycle water, with all eyes on the skies, said Ken Wagner, CEO of Fraction Energy Services, which rents water storage equipment.

“It’s definitely top of everybody’s mind. We need some more snow and we need big rain.”

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At 32.063 million hundredweight of potatoes this year, Alberta vaulted from third to first place as it improved on the previous year’s crop of 26.813 million. Manitoba moved into second spot from third with its harvest of 29.760 million cwt. following last year’s 26.139 million. Prince Edward Island saw its output reduced in 2023 to 25.813 million cwt. from 27.789 million. In 2023, the trio combined for 68 per cent of Canada’s total potato harvest of 128,801 million cwt.

Victoria Stamper, general manager of the United Potato Growers of Canada, noted production in Eastern Canada was mostly down in 2023. She said PEI was hit with rain during its harvest, while Quebec and New Brunswick contended with wet conditions through their summer and during harvest as well.

Stamper said Manitoba and especially Alberta saw greatly different conditions in 2023.

“Alberta has been in drought conditions for a few years now. They’ve been helped out with irrigation. Even that was getting tough. There were some growers who moved some their irrigation to from other crops to potatoes,” she commented.

StatCan calculated 397,232 acres of potatoes were seeded in Canada in 2023, of which 387,061 were harvested. That’s an improvement from 385,146 and 379,955 respectively in 2022. The average yield was up for a third consecutive year at 332.8 cwt. per acre compared to 325.1 in 2022 and 318.7 in 2021.

Alberta’s planted potato area came to 80,100 acres in 2023, up from 73,080 the previous year. Harvested acres rose to 76,440 from 71,325. Yields pushed past the 400 mark this year, at 419.5 cwt./ac. compared to 375.9 in 2022.

In Manitoba, planted acres nudged up to 81,000 in 2023 from 80,500 and those at harvest rose to 80,000 from 79,250. Yields improved to 372 cwt./ac. this year versus the 329.8 in 2022.

PEI’s potato acres saw some slight adjustments, with planted at 84,500 this year from 83,300 and harvested acres dipped to 83,000 from 83,200. Yields retreated to 311 cwt./ac. this year from the 334 in 2022.

As for the rest of the provinces, their potato crops were: New Brunswick 14.879 million cwt., Quebec 13.492 million, Ontario 8.602 million, British Columbia 2.140 million, Saskatchewan 1.780 million, Nova Scotia 222,000 and Newfoundland and Labrador 50,000.

Manitoba is scheduled to mark its Potato Production Days at the Canad Inns in Brandon from Jan. 24 to 25.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg. 

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“People are, like, ‘tell us whether it’s working,’” said project co-ordinator Mel Luymes. “Again, please wait. It’s going to take years for us to get a good answer from this. I’m glad we put it in when we did, and I wish we’d put it in 20 years earlier, because now we’d have answers. But we’re still gonna have to wait.”

Why it matters: The site is one of the first in Ontario to test controlled drainage, the ability to turn tiles on and off depending on needed moisture, on a slope.

The project could be a step forward for drainage in Ontario, where most controlled drainage systems are built on even ground. Luymes explained why it has been difficult to build systems like this in the past.

“Conventionally, how people tile is just in straight lines. But on slopes, it’s really hard. You could never back up water without blowing the whole system, because there’s too much head pressure.”

READ MORE: How to get the most from farm drainage investment

Most of Ontario is not suited to simple flat-surface tile drainage systems.

“Only two per cent of Ontario was naturally flat enough that you could just retrofit an installation with a control gate,” Luymes said. “That meant the whole rest of Ontario could not benefit from control drainage until now.”

Mari Veliz, healthy watersheds manager with the Ausable-Bayfield Conservation Authority, said slope of the terrain was not the only challenge posed by the demonstration farm’s geography.

“The other thing that we found when we looked at that particular site is there’s quite a bit of hard, impervious pavement adjacent to the field,” said Veliz. “And so, water running off of that impervious surface was causing gullies across the fields.”

Several County of Huron administration buildings are on the site.

“Changing how that water intersected with the fields with erosion control measures, such as riprap, really also helped with reducing the surface water, but certainly bringing the water from the surface to a tile in a more controlled way did help with the gullies that we saw.”

The project at Huronview officially started pre-work in 2019, but Luymes said the idea took root long before that.

It started when Land Improvement Contractors of Ontario (LICO) hosted a session with Illinois-based drainage system designer Jeremy Meiners.

He was “designing systems where you can do control drainage on a slope,” Luymes said, “and control drainage, especially in the States, especially on flat ground, can be kind of common. But the hardest thing is to do it on a slope.

“And so LICO had him come up, and I was at that session, and I was, like … this is really interesting. Who will be crazy enough to try it?”

Luymes said she was approached by someone from Huron County who had taken an interest in the idea and asked her to write a grant application. It was successful.

“It was Huron County’s land. A lot of it was funded by the Canadian Agricultural Partnership and also, we had industry support, like tonnes of industry support.”

The project also had backing from the Huron Soil and Crop Improvement Association.

“I think it’s important to stress that this project was so collaborative, and it’s actually a miracle that it got done in such short order when we had such diverse partners there.”

Veliz said local farmers were supportive of using the Huronview property for experimentation.
Luymes said she felt the venture was mutually beneficial.

“This was all public money, let’s just say, and it was a collective venture that we could all learn from. That was our goal, was to make a project that we could really learn from in terms of control drainage.”

Luymes said they began to use the site for many projects and experiments that control water movement on farms, including contours and terraces.

“It’s kind of a side-by-side of a conventional system versus a contoured and controlled system versus a not drain system at all.”

One of the main benefits to a controlled system is its potential to improve water quality.

“So, say you reduced the water output from a system by 40 per cent. That’s also a 40 per cent reduction in phosphorus and nitrate loading, just right then and there,” said Luymes.

“If there’s no tile drainage, we have so much surface erosion that it’s a major issue for water quality. So, putting tile drainage in is the first thing that you can do to improve water quality.”

Veliz said she has already seen improvements in reduced erosion from surface water and a lower water table that allows earlier field work.

Though the water quality aspect could be beneficial, Luymes said the impact on yields is uncertain.

A controlled drainage system requires some learning, because “If it’s not managed properly, it could also reduce yields because you could oversaturate the soil when it should have been draining.”

Unconventional tile placement is not a quick retrofit, Luymes added, and unless it proved to consistently increase crop yield, it would likely be cost prohibitive.

The system at Huronview uses control gates to regulate outflow from the tile — 21 of them at $500 to $1,200 per gate.

Because of this, Luymes said it is important to test the system in a controlled environment rather than expect farmers to try it themselves.

“It was a lot of risk … too much that I would want to put on any farmer’s shoulders,” she said. “I would feel terrible if I’d encouraged a farmer to do that, to put all their own money into it, and then it didn’t work.”

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Improving field drainage can have significant benefits for soil health, the overall on-farm environment and increased crop yields.

Effective drainage removes excess soil water in the root zone, allowing better aeration and avoiding stress to crops from saturated conditions. Drainage also improves field “trafficability”, allowing more access while limiting compaction.

In terms of crop establishment, plants can develop deeper root systems in fields, enhancing access to nutrients and water in the soil.

Finally, drainage can reduce year-to-year variability in yields from poorly drained fields by increasing nitrification (converting ammonia to nitrate) in most soils, enabling more nitrate uptake in plants.

Research pays off

There are several aspects to consider when researching drainage options. One of the more important aspects involves soil types. The level of sand or clay will affect the type of drainage products recommended. Soil type will also determine the best time of year for installing tile drainage.

The size of drainage tile is another key consideration: three- and four-inch diameter tiles are the more popular sizes and can be perforated, solid or covered with filter cloth.

As with any major on-farm investment, it’s best to consult with several professionals to ensure proper installation and completion to the highest standard. A drainage contractor should be fully licensed with business, machine and operator designations.

Installation has evolved considerably in the past two decades, with advances in machinery and technologies, so the contractor should be properly educated according to those changes.

A contractor who’s hands-on throughout the process, from initial planning and field condition assessment to actual installation, will increase its long-term value.

A land survey will enable the contractor to create a topographical map and lay out the sub-drain line structure. If the contractor is conducting both the survey and the installation, it will increase accuracy and efficiency and minimize risk of errors.

Prioritizing the mains is another component of an effective sub-surface drainage system. Ideally, excess water should be moved from a field within 24 hours and installing the appropriate-sized mains will help do the job. This is especially important in areas with extreme weather conditions and high flooding frequency.

Timing is the other consideration. The ideal time is after wheat (or other cereal) is harvested, although a contractor can help with that assessment as well.

However, it’s best to plan crop rotations so the field can be used as much as possible through the year of installation.

There are additional farm drainage licences and resources available through the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. A listing of drainage contractors in Ontario can be found on the Land Improvement Contractors of Ontario website at drainage.org.

– This article was adapted from an article written by Matt Penford, Ontario Agra Piping & Supplies Inc., that appeared in Niagara Farmers Monthly.

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A new report — dubbed a “landmark study” by the Potato Growers of Alberta — revealed the sector drove a total contribution of $2.87 billion to Canada’s economy in 2022.

It also notes the nationwide creation of 9,390 full-time-equivalent jobs, $662 million in employment income, a $1.3 billion contribution to GDP and $87 million in tax revenue to federal and provincial governments.

“We know that our industry has grown a lot in recent years but we had no accurate assessment of its overall impact on our economy,” said James Bareman, chair of the Potato Growers, in a webinar Tuesday.

“The industry could not have grown to this scale without the goodwill and collaboration of all parties involved: growers, processors, packers, the service sector, the scientific community and governments.”

The Alberta Potato Industry – Growing Success in 2022 was completed by Serecon and Nichols Applied Management — both Edmonton-based consultants with experience in developing economic impact assessments in the ag sphere.

The firms used world-standard industry methodology — further scrutinized and approved by an independent third-party university economist — to conduct the study.

“We wanted to ensure the study was accurate and the methodology was beyond reproach,” Potato Growers executive director Terence Hochstein wrote in a release.

“That’s why we went to great lengths to ensure it was conducted in a manner that would pass rigorous external scrutiny.”

Alberta is home to two broad regions of potato growers, Darren Haarsma of Serecon said: seed and table potatoes north of Calgary and processed potato products (chips, hash browns, et cetera) in the south.

Both subsectors are doing well, he said.

“Since 2017, there’s been marked increase in acres in Alberta across all types of production,” said Haarsma.

“A noteworthy point about the Alberta industry that makes it unique in comparison to other provinces is that the average production — thanks in large part to the extensive irrigation in Alberta — is about 30 per cent higher than the rest of Canada’s average.”

— Jeff Melchior is a reporter for Alberta Farmer in Edmonton.

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