NOT YOUR AVERAGE RODEO
WASTE NOT, WANT NOT
Experience is a rarity at 33-year-old Calgary Police Rodeo » PG 38
Alberta ‘bioreactor’ turns manure into high-value fertilizer » PG 2 Publications Mail Agreement # 40069240
V o l u m e 1 2 , n u m b e r 1 8 A u g u s t 3 1 , 2 0 1 5
Stewardship program expecting a flood of new applicants About 8,000 producers have completed an Environmental Farm Plan — but that number is about to grow by 5,000 a year
Dry doesn’t describe it in Mackenzie County Almost no rain has fallen across a county that’s bigger than New Brunswick — and that’s devastating for the cattle industry
By Alexis Kienlen AF STAFF / SUNDRE
J
ason Bradley thought he was a pretty good steward of the land — but doing an Environmental Farm Plan helped him become a better one. “If it wasn’t for the Environmental Farm Plan, this would not have come to fruition,” said the manager of Red Deer River Ranches, indicating the fencedin riparian areas and the portable water troughs in the pastures. “I knew these things were important. But now I know how they can be measured, which helped in terms of determining new projects for riparian health and managing that.” For 17 of his 18 years managing the Sundre operation, Bradley let cattle water themselves in natural springs and creeks. Now those waterways feed a catchment pond, with pipes connecting water troughs for the ranch’s 200 bred heifers. It’s an obvious win for the environment.
see PROGRAM } page 7
Mackenzie County Reeve Bill Neufeld stands in a dried-out field. Every farmer in the region has been hurt by the drought but cattle producers have been especially affected. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
By Alexis Kienlen AF STAFF
D
rought hits everyone hard, but Mackenzie County’s 150 cattle producers have been squeezed harder and earlier than most — and the fallout may be felt for years. Cattleman Eric Jorgensen remembers looking at an agro-climatic map in midJune that showed the province’s largest county, which at 80,000 square kilometres is larger than New Brunswick, had essentially received zero precipitation since the snow melted. “That’s when we really started to feel it — even that week in June, there were cows being shipped south from our area,” said Jorgensen, who ranches near Fort Vermilion and is also a county councillor. A month later — when he and his fel-
BETTER BASIS:
low councillors would be one of the first councils to declare a state of agricultural disaster — the exodus of cattle was in full swing. “By that point, we’d already been seeing a steady stream of breeding cattle going south. Those cattle are so hard to replace,” said Jorgensen. Many of them clambered into Bill Fehr’s trailer. “Normally in the month of July, I would haul two or three loads of cattle to the auction,” said Fehr, an independent trucker based in La Crete. “This July, it was 14 loads. From the middle of June to the middle of July, there were over 200 cow-calf pairs and 40 or so replacement heifers.” Those are significant numbers because many producers have herds in the 50- to 80-cow range. Cattle are often a source of second income but with oilfield work in the doldrums, now is not
a time when producers can subsidize their farm. And when the entire county dries up, its remote location — it’s 550 kilometres from Fort Vermilion just to Grande Prairie — quickly becomes an issue. Some producers from Manitoba sent free hay to Fort Vermilion, but the shipping costs were still tough to bear. “Even shipping hay from Grande Prairie costs about $40 a bale, and Grande Prairie was selling hay for about $150 a bale. Farmers were shaking their heads,” said Jorgensen.
Grim math
Multiply that by eight bales needed to get a cow through winter and the numbers just don’t work. “Because of the high cost of feed, there’s no way people can afford it,”
see drought } page 6
Tight supplies have an upside } page 18