A poor forage crop in Manitoba last fall, combined with lower than usual stockpiles, has nearly doubled the price of hay, says a forage producer in the southwestern corner of the province.
“People are buying hay for beef feed, for 41/2 to five cents a pound ($2-$2.25 per kilogram),” said Clark Combs, who farms near Deloraine, 70 kilometres southwest of Brandon.
Last year at this time, Combs noted, cattle producers were paying about half of that for moderate quality hay.
“Two and a half or three cents (per lb.) was the going price on beef (hay),” said Combs, who typically grows 1,500 acres of alfalfa and grass.
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The jump in price is not unexpected, given that 2008 was a bad year for forage production in Manitoba. Dry weather in the southwest and too much rain in the Interlake hammered alfalfa and other forage crops across the province.
“The jury is still out on the amount of loss that is out there,” said Glenn Friesen, a forage specialist with Manitoba Agriculture.
“I’m hearing 10 to 30 percent, depending on where you are,” Friesen said, noting the Interlake region suffered the highest losses.
Normally, producers can rely on last year’s stockpiles to get them through a lean year, he said. But that is not working this winter.
“The concern for this year is that last year was also a poor hay yield,” he said. “So we didn’t have a lot of reserves left over for the 2008-09 feeding period.”
The lack of hay is evident to Combs, who gets calls daily from cattle producers in Manitoba and North Dakota seeking feed for their herds.
The increased demand and higher prices for hay are good news for forage growers like him. But Combs is worried about the bigger picture in the cattle industry.
“With the price of cattle right now, it doesn’t make any money … buying hay at that price,” said Combs, who also thought cattle numbers were dropping.
Martin Unrau, past-president of the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association, confirmed Combs’ assumption that there are fewer cattle in the province.
“We don’t know the exact number at this time,” said Unrau, who has 250 head near MacGregor, Man. “(The number of) producers leaving the business might not be as high as we first thought. Because some guys are selling off, for example, 50 percent of their herd to buy hay.”
Unrau is hopeful those producers will be able to rebuild their herds in the future. However, he is concerned about a larger trend on the Prairies, where farmers are getting out of forage in favour of crops.
“Anytime you do make a change, such as moving from one commodity to another, you usually don’t make a change for one year. It’s at least three years, maybe more,” he said. “So, for a couple of years we’ll be wondering where are we going to go with hay production and cattle production.”
Asked how many forage acres have been lost, Friesen could not provide a definite figure for Manitoba.
Alfalfa remains the third biggest crop in Manitoba, by acreage, Friesen said, and the province exports 15 percent of its annual production. Therefore, Manitoba has a cushion before forage supply within the province becomes a crisis.
“It would take a (sizable) exit from the industry …. I don’t know if we’re there (yet),” he said.
But he said production that is exported primarily supplies the U.S. horse market and doesn’t easily replace the cheaper hay needed to feed cattle in Manitoba.
“The value of that hay going to the U.S. is anywhere from two to five times the value.”
