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thin wheat stand due to dry - drought - crop conditions
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A number of Rural Municipalities in the province are starting to declare a " local state of emergency " due to the drought.

Last week, the RM's of Gull Lake, Excelsior, Arlington, Old Post, and Dundurn passed resolutions declaring an agricultural drought emergency.

SARM President Ray Orb expects to see other RM's will follow a similar path, especially in west-central and southwest regions.

"I've been told by Mr (Larry) Grant who is our SARM director (he actually lives in the Val Marie area) that he thinks they'll be other RM's coming online as far as declaring drought emergencies fairly soon."

Orb says the immediate concern is the livestock sector with some producers already putting their cattle up for sale, while others are considering it.

"The supply of water is diminishing, hay is basically non-existent in some of those areas. As for the pasture the grasses really dried up because they didn't have basically any rains since the snow melted. So it's getting more crucial as every day goes by."

While there is some rain in the forecast for this week, for some areas in the province the last week in July is expected to see temperatures around the 30-degree mark.

Meantime, the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association is calling on the federal and provincial governments to take additional action to assist livestock producers facing extreme drought conditions across the province. 

Last week's crop report shows cropland topsoil moisture in the province has dropped to 21 percent adequate, 55 percent short and 24 percent very short. 

Producers are looking for decent rainfall with most crops still rating either good or fair, but the number classified as poor and very poor is growing. 

According to the crop report, 16 percent of canola and spring wheat are either in the poor or very poor categories.