When a hail storm bludgeoned through central Alberta on Aug. 1, vehicles on the Queen Elizabeth II highway weren’t the only ones damaged by Canadian record-breaking hailstones — so were grain, fruit and vegetable crops in the area.
Leona Staples, co-owner of The Jungle Farm, said she was relieved to find that there wasn’t as much damage to her crops as she expected after the hailstorm that shut down the QEII.
But two hours later, another storm came through the farm, 10 kilometers north of Innisfail, Alta., and ripped through hundreds of acres of crops.
“It stripped all the grain off of the grain crop. It cut up all of the vegetables, all the strawberries, took up all the flowers,” said Staples.
This most recent storm came less than a month after The Jungle Farm was hit by what Staples says is the worst storm the farm has faced in 25 years.
While her grain crops are covered under…
