Like most local farmers, the president of the Kent County Federation of Agriculture is spending much of this month atop a tractor.
Brad Snobelen, one of more than 1,850 local farmers represented by the KFA, works the fields on his property near McKay’s Corners north of Ridgetown.
He said 2024 has been a solid year for crops.
“It’s been a good growing season for the most part. There has been water at times and that can make things a little challenging,” he said. “But the season has been good. There’s moisture in the soil. If we were to plant something again, there is enough moisture to handle it.”
That’s much different than what transpired in 2023 When weather events soaked the land.
“We had some serious flooding last year,” Snobelen said.
Farmers have to deal with greater weather swings these days, he said. And the field tiles aren’t equipped to deal with heavy rain events of today.
“It seems like the weather patterns have changed. When we get rain, we tend to get a lot of it,” Snobelen said. “When I was a kid, I feel we got a lot of quarter inch, half inch of rain. Now I feel we get a lot of inch-plus rain in one big go.”
Most tiled fields can handle rain to the extent of about an inch over a 24-hour period. More than that and the system becomes overloaded.
“All the ditches…they just don’t take it away fast enough,” Snobelen said.
This year, with the weather unrest that has seen several hurricanes hit the U.S., Snobelen said farmers here have felt an impact, but not really in terms of precipitation, but rather in the form of a leaf disease that affects corn.
“Most of the guys – I’d say 98 per cent – are spraying their corn for it. The winds of the hurricanes bring it up from the U.S.,” he said.
Otherwise, it’s been a typical crop cycle here in Chatham-Kent. Snobelen did say soybeans matured about a week earlier than normal, however.
All that makes for what will be a busy harvest season.
“If we can get a stretch of good weather, a lot of farming is going to happen in a short period of time,” Snobelen said.
Expect to see farm machinery working from dawn past dusk during that time. And watch out for slow-moving vehicles on urban roads.
Once the crops are harvested, Snobelen said local farmers have to contend with depressed commodity prices.
“Corn and beans are down considerably from the last five or six years. It’s not at the point guys are losing money, but it’s certainly taking some of the fun out of it,” he said.
On the plus side, Snobelen said he doesn’t expect crop prices to dip any further.
As it stands, corn was selling for $4.18 US per bushel in late September, while soybeans were going for $10.57 US.
Snobelen said some farmers could hold onto their crops and hope the prices rise, but it can be a risky business.
“It sometimes helps, but I don’t know if that’s going to be the case this year,” he said. “By putting it into storage, you take a risk. You hope that it survives in the storage bins and doesn’t get moldy.”
Snobelen said commodity prices are a big reason why the KFA continues to lobby against any change to the farm-tax ratio in Chatham-Kent. It’s an issue that will return to council later this year or in early 2025.
Here in Chatham-Kent, farmers have a tax rate of 0.22 on their land. Eighty per cent of municipalities elsewhere in Ontario have a tax rate of 0.25. Returning to that level would not sit well with local farmers, Snobelen said.
“That’s $2.5 million extra if they change the tax structure. We don’t feel we should be responsible for that,” he said.
