Extremely dry temperatures for the past two years in Southern Alberta are taking a toll on feed supplies for livestock herds and the issue has gotten so bad that the Alberta SPCA has issued a warning about neglect.
Earlier this week, the Alberta SPCA sent out an advisory on Twitter, saying that the agency had been dealing with an excess number of complaints over livestock neglect this season.
The agency says that it also expected the situation to get worse, considering that dry weather at the wrong times has led to a serious shortage of livestock feed.
“A lot of areas of Southern Alberta were dry last year so we went into the fall with low moisture reserves,” said Rich Smith with Alberta Beef Producers. “We had quite good snowfall in a lot of areas but it was a hard winter so people used up a lot of the feed in the cold winter.”
Smith says the Alberta Beef Producers have formed a board to monitor the situation and stay in contact with producers who may experience difficulties over the season, but Ottawa is helping out too.
One of the ways where the government is already helping is with a tax deferral program for selling livestock. Smith says that a lot of producers are coping with the shortage by selling their animals to help extend their supply of feed and that program helps them in the long run.
“Some have had to sell breeding animals and that’s tough on an operation. It hasn’t seemed to have affected markets yet. We haven’t seen a massive wave of breeding animals sold but there’s certainly numbers of them being sold.”
The government’s program helps farmers in certain prescribed regions in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec by holding a portion of their sale proceeds to help replenish their herds next year.
Smith says that while the program is a good idea, he would like to see further support so that farmers aren’t left waiting to see if they are in one of the prescribed regions for aid.
“We’d like to see a process where anytime producers faced extreme conditions and were forced to sell breeding animals, they would have that option available to defer the taxes.”
Rachel Herbert, a rancher in Nanton, says that feeding her livestock is the biggest expense in her operation and that cost has increased astronomically over the past two years.
“We’ve seen the prices rise steadily every year. They really jumped last year because we were dry but this year, it wasn’t only dry and expensive, there was just literally no hay to be found in this area. All of our neighbours and our family who are producers have had to do the same thing.”
Herbert says she has sent her herd out to a pasture west of the community, where there has been better rain, but that won’t help if conditions stay dry in 2019.
“We aren’t too worried about our grazing season here but we are definitely looking into having a more challenging year next year if we don’t get the moisture.”
She says that while selling livestock from her herds doesn’t really work with her business model, they are culling the herd a lot deeper than before in an effort to reduce feed costs.
“Anything that isn’t top-of-line, we are going to be moving along those cows because we can’t afford to keep them through.”
However, Smith says the whole picture isn’t fully clear yet because the harvest hasn’t been completed for the 2018 season.
“Some of the grain crops, depending on weather and the weather hasn’t been great the past week, might turn into feed but we just aren’t sure.”
He adds that producers should also stay in contact with their county and municipal governments to make sure they know about any hardships they are facing.
“[They should] let their counties and municipalities know because a lot of times government assistance can be driven by counties and municipalities, declaring disasters or identifying to the federal government that there are producers in their area who have severe feed shortages.”
For more information on what regions are included on the 2018 tax deferral program, you can consult the Government of Canada’s website.
(With files from Brenna Rose)
