A number of rural municipalities in Manitoba’s Interlake region are raising alarm bells about drought conditions and the effect they’re having on local producers.
The RM of Coldwell, which includes the town of Lundar, is the latest to declare a state of agricultural disaster, while the RMs of Woodlands and St. Laurent have declared states of agricultural emergency.
Coldwell reeve Virgil Johnson told Global Winnipeg that a dearth of rain has producers in the region’s cattle industry scrambling.
“In the last two weeks, it has really showed up — the pressure on the cattle industry here,” he said.
“We were all hoping for some rain, and the forecast told us we were going to get a sizable amount, but as it came to the rain days it just disappeared, basically.
“Right now the cattle situation around here is getting kind of dire.”
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Johnson said cattle farmers are moving their animals from pasture to pasture, but the pastures aren’t having the opportunity to recover the way they have in previous years.
“(In) a normal year, you could swing them around back to that same pasture you took them out of … and this year, that’s not happening anywhere in the RM. Once they’re done with that pasture, there’s basically no recovery, and farmers only have so much pasture. It’s getting pretty bleak.”
The municipality has been in communication with the provincial agriculture minister, Johnson said, in hopes of finding a solution, and is reaching out to the minister’s federal counterpart as well.
“It’s not looking good when farmers are averaging probably 25 per cent, and some are lucky to have a little bit more — but what industry can survive on a 25 per cent feed stock compared to a normal year?
“Any help for the producer is going to be a little bit of a burden off their backs.”
Global News has reached out to both the provincial and federal governments for a response.
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