Alberta feedlot owners want the provincial government to help them with repair costs related to flood damage.
At the Alberta Cattle Feeders Association’s annual meeting Jan. 16, chief executive officer Bryan Walton said the group has been in discussions with the province for more than a year about the issue.
Extremely wet conditions in 2010 caused havoc in some feedlots when the base beneath pens was saturated and damaged by cattle and efforts to clean. Pens had to be rebuilt from the ground up in some cases.
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Walton said flood-related disaster assistance was available, but a payment cap meant some feedlots were not eligible. The Saskatchewan and Manitoba governments provided assistance to feedlots in those provinces, he added.
“The issue is the arbitrary nature of the cap and the second (issue) is, looking at the other provinces and having some recognition that there was significant costs related to adverse weather and the fact that it happened in Alberta too,” Walton said.
John Vander Hayden of Picture Butte, Alta., who has capacity for 43,000 head in his three feedlots, said costs were high to rebuild the base beneath some of his pens when they were lost due to excessive moisture.
“There basically should not be caps,” he said. “It’s a disaster no matter what size you were, and so they should be paying on a per head basis or figure something out.”
