Farmers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba stand to lose up to $3 billion in revenue, due to the effects of heavy rain and flooding on crops, analysts from the Bank of Montreal say.

“For many, this is a very real crisis,” Douglas Porter, an economist with the financial institution, is quoted as saying in a news release Friday.

Porter compared the economic impact to another agriculture crisis from earlier in the decade: the detection of cattle infected with mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Porter said farm losses associated with that episode amounted to $5 billion.

In releasing its analysis, the bank announced it will consider applications from client farmers who wish to defer payments on the principal portion of their loans.

Porter’s analysis is similar to what others in the agriculture sector have already observed.

Porter estimates that one-fifth of agriculture land in the Prairies will go unseeded.

That matches estimates in Manitoba. In Saskatchewan, it has been reported that up to 40 per cent of farmland would go unseeded or, if it was seeded, would not produce a crop.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/08/06/sk-bmo-farm-losses-1086.html#ixzz0vrYtvtVY