Details of the 2026 Crop Insurance Program were announced Friday afternoon from the Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation (SCIC) head office in Melville.
Crop insurance is a federal-provincial-producer cost shared program "that helps producers manage production quantity and quality losses", states a news release from the provincial government. Government support of the program is provided through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP).
One of the main enhancements to the program for this growing season is the inclusion of the Satellite Forage Insurance Program.
The program will allow producers to get coverage by township, as opposed to the program its replacing – the Forage Rainfall Insurance Program – which provided coverage by the nearest weather station, which in some cases could be more than 30 kilometres away and may not accurately represent rainfall or soil moisture levels.
Provincial Agriculture Minister David Marit said the Satellite Forage Program started out as a pilot project last year.
"Hopefully, we'll see a good uptake on that through the program and through the ranchers here in the province." Marit said.
Over 85 per cent of seeded acres in the province were insured last year.
Asked if they expect one region to file the majority of claims than others, Marit is hopeful for a good season for all.
"I don't know if we ever really anticipated coming from one specific area. We're hopeful. We're always hopeful that we don't have any claims," he said. "We're still hopeful that we'll still see some good spring moisture come yet. Obviously, in anticipation, you would probably assume that that would be the area of concern. It always is. We're hopeful that this year, the folks out there can pull off a crop."
Marit says crop insurance information will be distributed to producers across the province by mail, starting Monday.
President and CEO of Sask. Crop Insurance Jeff Morrow said as of mid-2025, there were approximately $675 million in claims and $1.2 billion in premiums. Morrow stated those are mid-year numbers and the final total for the previous year are still being finalized.
Asked if premiums have gone up for this year, Morrow said it depends on the individual producer.
"The coverage is based on the producer's own yield history that they've proven to grow on their farm. Then the premium, there's a couple of components to it, what's happened in the area that they farm, but also their individual claim history impacts the premium cost. It is very individualized, and it will change depending on where they grow and what their history has been like in the program.” Morrow said.
The deadline to apply, reinstate, or cancel coverage is March 31, 2026. Producers need to choose crops to insure and coverage levels by that date.
The new insured prices and information can be found at scic.ca.
SARM and APAS react
The Presidents of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) and Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) were present for Friday's announcement.
Bill Huber with SARM and Bill Prybylski with APAS are both grateful for the continued funding by the federal and provincial governments and for the stability crop insurance provides in challenging times. However, both noted there is still room for improvement.
"As producers, we can all be somewhat critical sometimes if coverage isn't high enough, but we have to remember that we can't farm and survive on insurance. That's not our initiative. So even though we'd like some premiums to go down and coverage to go up a little bit, we have to be realistic," said Huber. "So we'd always like to see better improvements, but we're sure fortunate to see what we have in a program that's maintained and obviously working well for producers."
"Obviously, as Bill (Huber) mentioned, we'd always like to see lower premiums and higher coverage. But for the most part, I think producers are quite satisfied with the coverage that they have, for the price that they have, they're seeing the value for the money that they're investing. So it's nice to see the stability in the program and I look forward to continuing to work with the government to make improvements going forward." said Prybylski.
During the SaskAgToday.com Roundtable on Friday following the announcement, Kevin Hursh felt it was underwhelming overall.
"Not really much there for a news conference because the Satellite Livestock Insurance Program for forages had already been announced and people knew it was coming. And they really didn't spend a lot of time talking about price levels for the various crops under insurance for 2026. But that's really what producers will look at coming out of this announcement. And they're now posted on the Sask Crop Insurance website. And I would venture to say that the crop insurance prices will, if they don't change seeding intentions, they will certainly reinforce seeding intentions." Hursh said.
Hursh analyzed the insured prices for this year's program, which can be found here.
