Greg Inwood stands in front of 216 hay bales produced on two farms on Zion Line. Greg and his neighbours Bill Van Engen are donating this hay, along with additional bales from Squirrel Creek Farms on Brackenridge Drive to livestock producers in the prairies, where heat and drought conditions have left livestock producers struggling to keep their herds fed.
With some local farmers harvesting a fourth crop of hay, it’s safe to say that hay is in abundance in our neighbourhood. Not so in Northern Ontario, or out west.
Extreme drought and heat conditions have left livestock farmers contemplating how to shrink their herds given the lack of feed for their animals. The situation is dire.
While farmers are known for their independent spirits, they know how to come together when others are in need. Farm groups such as the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, its Canadian counterpart and the Beef Farmers of Ontario are spearheading plans to get livestock feed from Eastern Canada to drought-damaged regions of northwestern Ontario and the Prairie Provinces. Their initiatives locate hay donations from farmers with surpluses and organize their delivery to those who have exhausted their feed supplies. The objective is to offer immediate help to producers to allow them to protect and maintain the breeding herds across these regions until support from the federal-provincial AgriRecovery Assessment arrives.
Among the many producers who have responded to the call for help are local farmers Steve Brackenridge of Squirrel Creek Farms, and Bill Van Engen and Greg Inwood of Zion Line. Their crop is waiting for the delivery truck to arrive.
Logistics is one of the many challenges in this project. Good data, helpful attitudes and a significant shipping budget are required to make it happen.
On the financial side, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) has donated $100,000 to emergency initiatives split equally in support of the Ontario and Western Canada initiatives. The funds will go towards the extensive shipping costs required to get the hay donations to impacted livestock farmers.
Hay suppliers are eager to get their hay delivered, particularly given the volume of rain that has fallen since the crop was harvested which affects the crop quality. Hay donations must be accessible by a flatbed trailer which will deliver directly to recipients selected from farm databases. Care has been exercised to ensure the feed is delivered to the appropriate recipients and not a re-seller. Eligible beef, dairy, sheep and goat producers seeking support must be able to attest to experiencing an immediate livestock feed shortage as a result of the extreme dry conditions of the 2021 growing season and show valid farm business registration identification.
Crop failure due to extreme weather conditions is not new for Canadian farmers. According to the CFA, a similar relief program ran in 2002 and ten years later, when the situation was reversed, farmers in the West sent hay east to help farms stricken with drought in that region.
To date, deliveries to Northern Ontario are complete, with the next shipments headed west. They can’t arrive too soon.
Introductory economics courses often use the agricultural product markets as a model of pure of “perfect” competition, where every producer competes for their spot in the market. This exercise demonstrates a different side of the competitive market, where producers support their “competitors” to help them survive. Sounds like a perfect kind of market to me. KG
