Shortage of high quality | Dairy operations are balancing rations with corn and byproducts
OLDS, Alta. — There is a market for Canadian hay in the United States, but it doesn’t mean it’s a profitable one, says the president of the American Forage and Grasslands Council.
Drought, winterkill in alfalfa and fewer acres in hay adds up to a need for more hay, but Chad Hale said American livestock producers won’t necessarily pay top price.
“Yes, there will be a shortage of high quality hay, but you’re not just competing against U.S. hay guys, but corn and byproducts,” Hale told a recent Canadian Forage and Grasslands Association conference.
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Dairy producers, who are the main buyers of Canadian hay, have dramatically increased in size recently. It’s not uncommon to see 1,000 to 2,000 head dairies in the eastern U.S.
“Many of them don’t grow all their own feed,” Hale said.
“That is your target. Your potential customer is getting bigger.”
Dave Gentry, president of the Illinois Forage and Grasslands Association, said much of the hay produced in his state goes to dairy producers in Wisconsin, Iowa, New York and Pennsylvania, but the hay follows the cash.
An increasing amount of hay has been being shipped to horse owners near Chicago and St. Louis in recent years.
“They suck up a significant amount of the forages we are able to produce,” said Gentry.
“Cash hay goes wherever the money is.”
Dry hay is not easy to put up in good condition so many producers are putting up baleage, which horse owners willingly buy.
Gentry sees dairy as the largest market for hay, but cheese producers are becoming a niche market. They aren’t large enough to compete with large dairy operations but want high quality hay.
Michael Davidson of Sage Hill Forage, a U.S. exporter group, said dairies that moved from California to Montana and Idaho to establish 5,000 to 10,000 head dairies buy almost 90 percent of his company’s feed.
Instead of feeding hay, large dairy operations balance their rations with the cheapest available feed source.
Gentry said demand for land is so fierce that it’s not uncommon for widows to be approached at their husbands’ funerals asking to rent their land.
“We will have to produce more on fewer acres,” he said.
Gentry hopes researchers will develop bloat free alfalfa, leafhopper resistant alfalfa, low lignin alfalfa and Roundup Ready alfalfa as ways to increase yields on the same number of acres.
“These are opportunities we see and ways we are going to address our market,” he said.
