Flood Risks Rising in Canada Grain Belt as Snow, Cold Delay Thaw

The risk of crop-damaging floods is increasing in Canada, the world’s second-largest wheat exporter, as late-season snow and freezing weather delay spring planting across the Prairie Provinces and into the northern U.S. Most of southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan, which together produced 61 percent of Canada’s wheat last year, got at least 15 percent more precipitation than normal in the past six months, including twice as much in an area from Saskatoon to below the North Dakota border, government data show. Manitoba classified its flood risk April 10 as “moderate to major,” two days after Saskatchewan predicted above-normal runoff.