by SUSAN MANN
The National Farmers Union in Ontario wants Agriculture Minister Ted McMeekin to start working on disaster relief for livestock producers running short of feed and growers facing the loss of their field crops.
In a July 16 letter to McMeekin, NFU-Ontario coordinator Ann Slater says dried up pastures are forcing farmers to start feeding hay that was to be stored for winter. She predicts there will be a severe shortage of hay to feed during the winter and little or no hay will be available to buy.
Even now, any that’s available is really expensive. Ontario Cattlemen’s Association president Dan Darling says they’ve heard hay is costing more than $100 for one round bale. Typically a round bale is $30 to $40.
Darling described the situation on pastureland and hay ground as “pretty serious.”
“The grass is burning off,” he says, noting the hay in many areas of the province was only about two-thirds of the regular crop size due to lack of winter snow to provide moisture. Lack of rain hurt the first cut while the second cut “doesn’t even seem to be there.”
Significant rains coming now would mean farmers might not be too badly off. Nevertheless, now is the time for Ontario Cattlemen’s to talk to the minister and other farm organizations “that there may be a situation that we need some help drought-wise,” he says.
How dry has it been across Ontario? Ian Nichols, president of Chatham-based Weather INnovations Incorporated, says the entire area stretching from Windsor to Ottawa and up to Sudbury has been short of rain. Most of the area has received 60 to 80 per cent of average rainfall. In a portion of the Niagara area there has only been 40 to 60 per cent of normal rainfall since April 1.
Weather INnovations Incorporated does environmental monitoring, analysis and modeling for the agricultural industry.
“Everybody has been dry and that’s extremely unusual,” Nichols says. “Usually somewhere in the province they’ve had at least normal rain or slightly above.”
Slater says many farmers say they haven’t had any significant rain since the first couple days of June. Renfrew County NFU members say it’s the driest there since 1965 and maybe even longer. Darling says in the Temiskaming area the cracks are so deep in the soil someone can put their arm in up to the elbow. Prince Edward County and the Grey-Bruce region are also pretty dry.
Greg Stewart, agriculture ministry corn specialist, estimates 10 to 20 per cent of the corn crop has been irreversibly hurt by the dry weather, while another 10 to 20 per cent has been receiving good rainfall mainly in the area southwest of London. Yields there could be above the provincial average of 150 bushels per acre. The remainder flirts with average yields but needs a “just in time rain” to hang on to that.
Erin Fletcher, spokesperson for Grain Farmers of Ontario acknowledges there are challenges for farmers facing drought but says it’s too early to say if the situation is a disaster.
Disaster relief can only be triggered when it’s determined crop insurance and other risk management programs are inadequate to cover the true scope of the disaster. “That can’t be determined until the end of the growing season,” she says, explaining that crop insurance works by assessing yields after harvest.
The number of damage reports filed with Agricorp as of June 30 is 3,033. That’s a drop of nearly 42 per cent compared to the same time last year. Of this year’s June 30 damage reports, 482 were lack of rain, 1,093 were excess rain, and the rest were other perils.
Agricorp communications consultant Courtney Reistetter says during the past week there has been an increase in calls due to the lack of rain.
McMeekin says the ministry is monitoring the situation as well as consulting with its staff, farmers and farm leaders.
“Farmers can rest assured we will do anything and everything we can do and that we need to do to make sure they do as well as we like to see them do,” he says. But the ministry isn’t rushing to a judgment. Some areas are worse hit than others and “we’re aware of those.”
McMeekin says it’s likely he’ll go out and tour some of the province’s drought stricken areas.
The provincial agriculture ministry has already asked the federal government to initiate a formal process under the AgriRecovery framework for apples and tender fruit damaged by frost this spring. In a July 12 email, Mark Cripps, McMeekin’s press secretary, says it’s a 45-day process.
AgriRecovery is part of the business risk management program package in Growing Forward that enables federal, provincial and territorial governments to jointly respond case-by-case to specific disasters, such as disease and weather, with quick, targeted assistance. Costs are split with the federal government picking up 60 per cent and an affected province or territory paying 40 per cent. The objective is to reduce the impact of business risk faced by Canadian producers by assisting those affected by a disaster. BF
Comments
Great the 11 years from now agricorp will try and get back money like they are trying now from 4500 farmers by $30 million
Nought from OMAFRA towards me hath sped well.
So now I find that ancient proverb true,
Foes' gifts are no gifts: profit bring they none.
Sophocles (updated)
with farmers getting $8.00 plus per bushel corn and $16 for beans they should not need help with crop insurance. They are buying land at $10000 per acre why give them disaster pay!!!!!!
Its very dry where we are and looks like there is no sign of rain. The goverment will say anything from paying out any money. We had 6 tenths of rain since the first week of June.
It doesn't help when cash croppers are renting up all the land around, and turning the fields from hay in to corn. Leaving the average beef operation strapped for hay supply for their herds. Maybe there should be some kind of limit to howmuch field or fields can be turned around by cash croppers.
How reliable are the stations which measure rainfall for Agricorp?
It has been extremely dry everywhere in Haldimand County, yet for the month of June only one station (Walpole) registers a deficit. How can that be? If the crops in the area got the rain which the stations claim we got, why do all of the crops look so bad?!
We also noticed that a few of the amounts of rainfall registered in May increased from when we checked the site in June and then checked them again in July. Strange.
Wendy Omvlee
Pieter Bosschers
We wonder how agricorp will comput the FLOATING FOR 2012 CORN AND S BEANS does anybody know Will it break the provice or will they find a gimic to low ball the floating price?????????????????????
If you get 8$ and 16$ for corn and soyabeans its great if you had corn or soyabeans ,if the crops are burnt off you might just as well get 100$ a bushel.
Not everyone is buying land for 10,000$ an acre if they were I have land for sale. They write about few people paying that and the only ones is the older farmers or the ones that hit the lucky strike. The corn we have is not going to produce any cobs and the soyabeans might if we get alot of rain pretty soon.
I have been grassing cattle for 27 year's and we have never seen it this dry in July. Sure there have been dry spell's but nothing this severe. The first cut of hay was only 60% of our normal production. The rocketing price of land rent in our area it is nearly impossible to compete with large cash cropper's to find land to produce mory roughage for our cattle. This year's drought will go down as the dust bowl of 2012.Second cut hay is almost non-existant and with no rain in site, the spring cereal and corn crop. will likely be a right -off also at this critical stage of development. two thing's that don't exist are high grain price's and high cattle price's , consumer's be ready for a rise at the grocery store.PRAY FOR RAIN
Looking at Enviaronment Canada historical weather data for my area. Since June 13 we have had 8mm of rain, last year in that time we had 115mm.
And yet the weather forecasters keep referring to any potential rainfall as a "threat" or a "risk", and the continuation of this endless sunny dry weather as "another nice day of sunshine and clear skies"!
Rain is not necessarily a bad thing, people, and we should stop this weather-ist phraseology.
Pretty sure most people who peruse this site are aware of the fact that rain is not a bad thing. You need to put your comment in papers such as Globe and Mail and The National Post.
We have been cow/calf farming for thirty years and have never had a drought where there was no second cut in ANY field. The pastures are gone and we are letting the cows into our best hay fields so the little bit of second crop (three inches high) will not be wasted. We are also feeding our winters hay. I have no idea what we will be feeding in the winter. There has been many ups and downs in cow/calf farming over the years; this just may be the one that pushes us off that edge.
It's too bad the beef farmers couldn't have hydro ontario reverse the monies that we have been paying to their debt retirement problem, so that we may buy hay to help keep the beef farmers from having to sell their herds that took farmers many years of working hard and doing with out to build up.
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