WILLIAMS LAKE, B.C. – Helen Bayliff told one politician after another what is going wrong for British Columbia ranchers.She talked about poor cattle prices, lost grazing land from forest encroachment and drought, wild horses running rampant over the range and wolves attacking calves.New to B.C. Cattlemen’s Association meetings, Bayliff wondered if elected officials are getting the message.“We’re irrelevant,” she said, during a break from the meetings held in Williams Lake, B.C., May 28-29.The provincial ministry of forests controls crown grazing leases even though the land is used for agriculture. With what she calls no vision on land care from the government, she wonders how she and her husband, Hugh, can continue to run their century old ranch at Redstone.They need alternative pasture be-cause drought and forest encroachment is killing the grass on their leased land.They cut their cattle herd size to less than 300 from 550.“Last year, our cows came in thin and we lost 15 calves. This year, our neighbours are not putting cows out on the range.”She said the government has failed to control wolves and feral horses because of pressure from urban residents.“I think city people would like to support farmers but they have a weird notion of how they should do that,” she said.Iris Wright at 100 Mile House is watching her neighbours leave.“There has been dispersal sale after dispersal sale,” said the 73-year-old rancher.Drought has been fierce in her area and owners of the larger herds have started to cut back because they can no longer afford to buy hay.“In past years when we had a reasonable market return for our livestock and had a bad hay crop year, rather than sell down our breeding herd, we would buy some feed and hope for better next year. But the margins have been so poor for so long that in the majority of cases, it is no longer an option,” she said.Larry Garrett and his partner, Karen Markle, of Vanderhoof, B.C., worry they could be the last generation on a ranch his family has owned for 52 years.The ranch runs on the income from cattle and timber sales.“When I look at our books, if we hadn’t had trees that we could have sold, we wouldn’t make it,” said Markle.“We are running 500 cows and every cow is costing us money,” Garrett said.Since 2000, they have planted a half million trees but these will not be ready for harvest for 80 years. The mountain pine beetle is destroying their timber.“Everything we have got that creates a living for us is bust,” said Markle, who also has an off-farm job.In a province of four million with less than two percent of the population farming, Garrett feels abandoned.“Our province is less supportive compared to Alberta and Saskatchewan,” he said.“Something is crippled in the system. The money used to trickle down and whether the margins for everybody else has shrunk so much or whether it is greed and they are keeping that margin, the money is not trickling down. I don’t know how you are going to solve it,” he said.“What happens to your food industry if the people who produce it now are going to disappear because they can’t make a living,” Markle said.
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