BONNYVILLE - The MD of Bonnyville has decided to proceed with declaring a state of agricultural disaster, as of Aug. 25.
"Council recognizes the importance of agriculture in our community. After reviewing reports from staff that observed plant growth, moisture, forage, and weather conditions over a five-week period, it was determined — using the associated Rural Municipalities Association guidelines — that the M.D. is in a state of agricultural disaster," reads a statement from the municipality, released after its council meeting on Wednesday.
This declaration acts as a trigger for financial aid programs for farmers and producers and raises awareness to higher levels of government of the severity of the situation, and the need to expedite assistance programs.
Cattle ranchers affected
Producers in the area say the drought facing Prairie farmers is creating a crisis situation for cattle ranchers as well.
The recommendation to declare a state of agricultural disaster came from a special ASB meeting on Aug. 17, after the board spent five weeks investigating crop yields in the area. That investigation showed 60 to 70 per cent of pea crops were rated poor by Aug. 13, as were 60 per cent of tame hay, 70 to 80 per cent tame pasture and 70 to 80 per cent native pasture.
MD of Bonnyville Reeve Greg Sawchuk said poor crop yields are just part of the story. The widespread nature of this drought means livestock producers across the Prairies also can't get enough feed to see their animals through winter.
“I know that cattle have already started to move, as the pastures are running out sooner than they would normally,” he said. “There are going to be more cows going to market than in many years.”
The difference between this harvest and previous low-yield harvests is how widespread this year's drought is, he explained. In previous years, low yields could be offset by bringing in feed from elsewhere at a reasonable price. This year, those other places are in the same boat as Alberta.
A number of municipalities across Alberta have already declared states of agricultural disasters, including the County of St. Paul, County of Two Hills, and Lac La Biche County.
Sawchuk, who runs a cattle operation, said his hay yields are at 50 per cent or less, and as a result he expects they will have to sell off 15 to 20 per cent of their breeding herd, based on early estimates. Cattle flooding the market means worse prices for sellers, too.
“When you're selling, and everybody else is selling, the price is down,” he said. “So what you receive for them at this point in time during the year, versus what you would have got, say, last fall, is considerably different. Then, when you try to build back your herd, it's likely to be more expensive because the supply won't be there to replace those.”
Kellie Nichiporik, the environmental program manager for the Lakeland Agricultural Research Association (LARA), said some farmers have fared better than others but the drought has been felt across the region and in LARA's own crops as well.
Nichiporik said there has also been an increase in water quality concerns, with lower water quantity, which affects livestock as well – especially those that drink from dugouts where toxic algae blooms can occur. Coupled with less feed, cattle producers are selling off their herds and some producers are using their harvest for feed instead of selling it.
“Usually when there is a drought, you can easily get feed from another region across the Prairies, but there's nowhere that has feed,” she explained.
“There's a lot of selling off of livestock – it's going to have huge impact in that area.”
Paul McLauchlin, president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA), said he's hearing from farmers that this year's drought is worse than the one Alberta experienced in 2001, since that one didn't hit the other Prairie provinces or the northern American states.
“Because we have an integrated food market, both for cattle as well as other exports, it's created a really serious feed situation. Going beyond the crops, we're really in a serious livestock crisis as well,” he said.
Some ranchers McLauchlin knows have just seen their herds recover from the BSE crisis of 2003, only to be hit by a drought that could require them to sell off 30 to 50 per cent of their stock.
It's also changing the agriculture market. Some Alberta farmers he's spoken to have seen their hay stocks bought up by people in the U.S. whose own stocks have been impacted by the drought – something that wouldn't normally happen.
“So we have this sort of competition for resources – it starts to get very frightening, you'll see huge herd dispersals. There's really a need to see if we can start moving fodder from Ontario ... to potentially offset what's going on for the feed market. It's hit all sectors, all producers – it's hit from the Montana-Alberta border all the way up to the Peace Country.”
Herd dispersals of this size can be hard to recover from, he added.
“That will change the beef market in Alberta for a very long time, and some folks might leave the market – we may never get them back.”
Tough on farmers
Producers who take pride in their businesses are also faced with the spectre of letting down customers. McLauchlin said many agricultural industries rely on “forward contracts” – contracts to deliver a set amount of product for a certain price, on a certain date.
“When you don't have the quality canola to provide at that forward rate, then you start getting into a situation where some of our folks aren't going to be able to fulfill those contracts. That becomes a pretty serious business issue for a lot of folks, too,” he said.
“We're hearing from a lot of people that are very stressed, and just the despair that's tied to that.”
There is support out there from the federal and provincial governments – AgriStability, a program designed to help agricultural producers manage large income declines, provides tax credits per head of cattle, for instance, and has recently received an infusion of $136 million in funding from the province. Similarly, the AgriRecovery disaster relief program received a boost of at least $100 million from the federal government.
Nichiporik said with federal and provincial supports in place, ranchers can get about $200 per head of cattle. That doesn't even cover the cost of a bale of hay, she noted.
“It's not going to make a huge impact. A lot of times, this will have cascading effects,” she said, explaining that commodity prices have gone up but yields are so low that farmers won't break even on the costs of growing their harvest. Farmers have had several difficult harvests since 2016 as well, and this year, fertilizer costs were high in the springtime and grasshoppers were prolific.
“It's going to have a multi-year impact on producers,” she said.
After this drought, McLauchlin said he thinks there needs to be a plan in place for disasters like this one. On the grain side of the conversation, the idea that this could be our “new normal” should be taken seriously, he added.
“We need to start talking about, what do we do if we have this for the next five years? What does that future world look like? We need to take a serious look at the economics of farming and look for ways to accommodate,” he said.
“We need to play the long game here and actually create some certainty in the whole entire industry to support the folks that are remaining in agriculture.”
McLauchlin said he also sees a need for community support to help farmers deal with the toll these disasters take on their mental health.
“Rural folks are resilient, but there's really a need to start looking at those resources tied to mental health and just providing those community supports, making sure you're not looking at recovery that's all red tape,” he said.
“We definitely need to all pitch in and help these folks, because they're the ones that keep food on the table.”
Crop report
According to one of the latest Alberta crop report's, released Aug. 10, crop conditions declined slightly from July. At the time of the report, 18 per cent of crops in Alberta were in good or excellent condition, compared to the five year-average of 69 per cent.
In the northeast area of the province, which includes the MD of Bonnyville, the per cent of crops rated in good to excellent condition as of Aug. 10 included:
- 27.6 per cent of spring wheat
- 13.1 per cent of barley
- 19.7 per cent of oats
- 15.5 per cent of canola
- 13.1 per cent of dry peas
- 40.5 per cent of flax
- 100 per cent of potatoes
Alysa Pederson, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said temperatures this summer have been well above normal, pointing to the heat waves in June and July.
Environment and Climate Change Canada doesn't have a weather station in Bonnyville. But they do have one in Cold Lake, where Pederson said June 10 saw a thunderstorm drop 45.8 mm of precipitation. In all, that month got more precipitation than usual. But that was coming off a dry May, and July – usually the wettest month – got a third of the moisture it usually does. Meanwhile, smoke that rolled into Alberta from the forest fires in B.C. limited the thunderstorm activity throughout the rest of the summer.
“It reflects a lot of the sun's energy back up to space,” Pederson explained of smoke. That reduces daytime high temperatures – if the forecast called for 30 C without smoke, it might only reach 23 or 24.
“It reduces our temperatures by a significant amount, which means then that our daytime highs aren't high enough to get the thunderstorm activity that we would otherwise get.”
That's despite this summer's heat waves, since the smoke is depressing temperatures on days when thunderstorms would actually be likely to happen.
“Across the Prairies, because of the pattern over western Canada – the upper ridge pattern over B.C., Alberta and even all the way over to Manitoba, precipitation amoutns in all of the Prairies have been well below normal,” she said.
“So when you're going to have that, coupled with the ridge of high pressure with extreme temperatures, that is going to dry out the environment. So we're in a very, very dry period for a lot of the Prairies.”
*With files from Janice Huser