During the early dog days of July, Rena Fowler spent her hours culling
sheep at her Bonnyville, Alta., farm.
She has received 10 millimetres of rain this year, forcing her to cut
her flock of 450 purebred Dorset ewes to 50.
“There’s no feed available and what there is, they want an arm and a
leg for it or your first born child,” Fowler said.
The meagre hay supplies that are available are selling for more than
$100 for a 1,100 pound round bale. Last year, round bales cost $30.
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During a trip to the local feed mill last week, she was offered barley
screenings at $2.25 a bushel.
Producers in Fowler’s area were able to continue buying hay locally
until December and then supplies ran out.
Their choice was find feed or liquidate.
“Anybody who has livestock is trying to divest,” said her partner Rick
Reinhart. “Our return on our investment has been 30 cents on the
dollar.”
Fowler wants governments to do something tangible. She suggested
freight subsidies to bring feed into the worst drought areas.
“Nobody seems concerned about what is happening here today,” she said.
“There doesn’t seem to be anybody who gives a darn.”
Sheep producers are facing massive dispersals across Alberta and into
Saskatchewan.
The drought is one of several factors slamming the industry, said Doug
Laurie of North Central Sheep and Goat Sales, which handles sales
through the Edmonton Stockyards.
The continuing softwood lumber dispute with the United States forced
British Columbia timber companies to restrict custom grazing of sheep
in clear-cut blocks, removing a valuable source of summer forage for
many.
The worsening situation will be compounded when Edmonton stops holding
sheep sales because of poor lamb and mutton prices and the difficult
logistics of handling sheep in a facility designed for cattle. The last
sale will be July 11.
Prices have been dismal. Breeding ewes are going for 10 to 15 cents a
pound.
“It has never been that low,” Laurie said.
Market lambs are holding at 70 cents per lb., less than break-even for
producers.
Alberta Sheep and Wool Commission manager Maureen Duffy said the
traditionally stronger eastern ethnic market is also soft.
The eastern market for cull ewes dried up when mutton sales were
replaced with offshore product from New Zealand and Australia.
“There is no market for mutton in Canada at all. It is looking
desperate,” Duffy said.
Flocks had been growing in Canada in recent years, with 18 percent
growth between 1996 and 2001.
But that is changing now.
According to Statistics Canada, the national flock shrunk to 801,000
sheep as of Jan. 1, 2002 from 1.041 million sheep and lambs in 2001.
Alberta, which is the second largest producer behind Ontario, saw its
flock shrink to 165,000 sheep from 234,000. This year’s lamb crop is
not included in the 2002 total.
