The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has started working on a new initiative that would send any extra hay from farmers on the East Coast to farmers in Western Canada.
The “Hay West” initiative is aimed to help farmers in the Prairies province dealing with hay shortages due to “devastating and prolonged” drought conditions.
This isn’t the first time the initiative has been put in place. The first time was in 2002, when Prairie farmers were facing a similar situation to what is going on now.
In 2012, farmers in the West sent hay to farmers in the East.
“We have our staff as well as a third-party working towards determining how much of a hay surplus is available, and are looking to work with the railways and the government to help these farmers that are in dire need of feed for their animals,” said Mary Robinson, CFA president.
“We believe this initiative will help ease some of the stress that Western farmers are dealing with. We’d also like to point to the new Climate Action Fund as the kind of support that farmers need to continue investing in sustainability initiatives as they face these incredibly difficult circumstances.
“It can be hard for farmers to invest further in sustainability as climate change impacts greatly affect their financial situations.”
Further information surrounding the Hay West initiative will be provided at a later date when more details become available. Those details will be found on the CFA website.
Comments