The Christmas season is generally one of festivities and hope, but Sherry Blake doesn’t feel much like celebrating this year.
For the second year in a row the crop on their Silver Valley farm will go unharvested.
No money and plenty of bills don’t give Blake and her husband, Charles, much hope they’ll be able to save their farm by Christmas.
“December is coming and I should be thinking about Christmas. It doesn’t always mean money, but hope. When farmers lose their land they don’t have a lot of hope.”
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It’s a prospect hundreds of farmers may be faced with on the north and south sides of the Peace River and just across the border into British Columbia.
“There’s no border in this disaster,” said Blake, one of the organizers of the Farm Communities in Crisis committee. It’s a group of farmers from Cotillion, Bonanza, Silver Valley, Fourth Creek, Blueberry Mountain and Happy Valley that have joined together in their troubles.
While most of Alberta was able to harvest a crop, pockets in the Peace country have been wet for two years and have been unable to harvest their crops or put up hay for cattle.
The unusual weather forced many farmers to seriously consider if they can afford to carry on. In one last desperate attempt they’re joining to ask the governments to offer them some form of life raft.
The life saving device could be anything from a low-interest loan to a no-strings-attached aid package.
The situation is not much different just north of the Peace River at Cleardale.
“Farmers in the area are now faced with bills due and payable with no product to sell. Imagine, if you will, the disaster that strikes a community and surrounding business areas, when bills cannot be paid,” the Cleardale Flood Relief Committee said in a meeting last week with Alberta agriculture minister Ed Stelmach.
Who wants money
The committee asked: “Who are the creditors waiting to be paid? To mention but a few: Your local M.D. government is waiting for yearly land tax money; Alberta Health Care would like to be paid; fuel and fertilizer suppliers as well as chemical companies are regularly sending bills in the mail.”
While Stelmach talked about existing agriculture programs, he didn’t leave farmers with much hope there would be any provincial assistance, said Ken Hoover. The Cleardale farmer’s crop is still in the field and his grain bins are full of worthless grain from a year earlier.
Just west in British Columbia, farmers are hoping their government will make a disaster relief announcement in the next few days, said Rod Strasky of the Farm Crisis Committee.
If the government makes no announcement or says there will be no money, the group of farmers will go ahead with a plan to drive a combine from Dawson Creek to Victoria starting Nov. 17 to draw attention to their disaster.
