Tim Stewart is trying to plan his next move.
Searing hot weather and months without significant moisture have left his hay crops and pastures bone dry.
“We’re stuck in a pretty tough spot,” said the cattle producer who lives west of Rockglen, Sask.
“The price of hay is awfully high so it’s pretty near impossible to buy without going broke. And of course the price of barley snuck up 25 percent.”
Rain has fallen erratically throughout the province, but producers in the south especially are bearing the brunt of high heat and lack of moisture. Many areas have received less than 73 millimetres of rain since April.
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Stewart said his new hay is yielding a dismal 1,500 pounds per acre and everything else was between 500 and 700 lb. per acre.
As a result, he’s been setting up temporary fences to more tightly manage his cattle grazing and he plans to soon supplement his pastures with grain or pellets.
As well, Stewart plans to join other producers in the southeastern and southwestern regions who will attempt to sell cattle quickly to reduce feed demands.
“We’re going to try and place some someplace. We’re going to try and get our calves off as quick as possible, as quick as they’ll take them,” he said.
In one way, Stewart is luckier than some other producers in the area. He has hay left over from last year, which he will stretch to make last as long as possible.
Ryan Beierbach of Whitewood, Sask., in the southeast, has already bought some hay and expects many producers are in a similar position.
“The hay is really poor. About half of normal right now. Definitely guys will be short of hay,” said Beierbach, president of the Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association.
He said many livestock producers are heading into winter with leftovers from last year’s hay bounty, but not enough to make it through.
He said although southern Saskatchewan cattle producers will raise their bids for local hay, the U.S. drought has made the competition tougher. Many American producers are expected to look north for their feed needs.
“It’s a fairly big area once you get south of here that’s dry, so it’s probably closer for them to go north than to go south looking for hay. From what I’ve heard, cattle producers in Montana have a subsidy that their government is paying them. So that makes it pretty easy for them to pay more for hay,” Beierbach said.
In a news conference Aug. 3, Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart said cattle producers should not expect programs to subsidize the cost of transporting hay.
“We found that those things do more harm than good. They actually just increase the price of hay by the amount of the subsidy and that’s not helpful in this situation. The price of hay is going to be plenty high,” he said.
“It means some people will have to sell cattle, sell breeding stock that they wouldn’t have normally sold.”
He said the province has asked Ottawa to allow income tax deferrals on cattle sold prematurely because of the feed shortage. That would allow producers to carry money from the sales into next year, which allows them to average their incomes and avoid a big income tax charge this year. A high income tax bill could seriously add to the hurt producers in the worst-hit regions are already feeling, he said.
Beierbach said it’s not yet a panic situation for most cattle producers. This year’s harvest could solve some of their problems.
“A lot of things can happen that will turn good quality grain into feedÂgrain and if that happens that means there’ll be feed around,” he said.
“It’s a wait and see. Really, until we get to September, we won’t know how bad it is or how short of feed guys are going to be.”
