Prairie Farmer Concerned About Food Production as Invasive Weed Spreads
Farmers across the Prairies are warning of rising costs and lower yields as kochia, an herbicide-resistant tumbleweed, continues to spread across Western Canada.
At his family farm near Fillmore, Saskatchewan, farmer Jake Leguee says this year’s lentil and flax fields have been overtaken by the weed.
“One kochia plant can do a lot of damage,” he said. “That one seed turns into thousands.”
Kochia thrives in dry conditions and has now evolved resistance to multiple herbicides. Leguee says controlling it has become a major expense — he spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on chemical treatments and recently invested $100,000 in a weed-exterminator attachment for his combine harvester.
“It’s harder for smaller farms to adapt some of these tools and that is a concern long-term,” he said.
Despite these efforts, kochia continues to advance. Scientists with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada report that the weed, once confined to the southern Prairies, has now been found as far north as Blaine Lake, north of Saskatoon, and even in Alberta’s Peace Country.
Shaun Sharpe, an invasive-weed specialist, says the plant’s spread is being accelerated by climate change and deforestation.
“We’ve done a lot of cutting down tree lines that used to block the wind. Now it can just tumble and fly through open prairie,” he said.
Sharpe’s team is working on solutions — studying kochia’s sister species, mapping its movement, and helping farmers identify infestations early. They are also tracking waterhemp and palmer amaranth, two other fast-spreading herbicide-resistant weeds already present in Manitoba and North Dakota.
“Kochia is bad enough as it is,” Sharpe said. “Having another weed of that caliber move in could be disastrous for crop diversification.”
Tyler Smith, a botanist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, says a lack of comprehensive data makes it difficult to predict invasive behavior.
“We’ve got lots of data for precipitation and temperature,” he said. “We don’t have much on how these weeds interact with their environments.”
Back in Fillmore, Leguee is wrapping up another difficult harvest. The unchecked spread of kochia, he says, threatens the region’s long-term food production and profitability.
“Every patch of kochia means less yield and less production,” he said. “It could reduce our ability to turn a profit — and our ability to keep farming.”
