As British Columbia gets drier and drier, some farmers across the province are concerned that their crops, livestock and wallets will continue to do the same.
While some in the Okanagan have “kind of learned to live with drought,” BC Cattlemen’s Association president Brian Thomas said farmers in other parts of the Interior, particularly in the north, are struggling with “not normal” conditions.
“It’s still fairly early in the year for it to be this dry up there,” he told Global News, pointing to the Cariboo and Peace regions.
“North of Williams Lake, a lot of it is dryland farming … they rely on the snowpack and stuff like that. They don’t know they don’t have sprinklers and stuff like that. Those guys are really taking the hit.”
Some farmers are being forced to sell their cattle early or proactively cull some of them, he added.
British Columbia ranks drought conditions on a scale of one to five, with the latter meaning almost certain adverse effects on communities and ecosystems.
As of Thursday, four of the province’s 34 water basins were in Level 5 drought conditions: Fort Nelson, the Bulkley Valley, West Vancouver Island and East Vancouver Island. Another 18 were at Level 4, meaning two-thirds of the all water basins were ranked in the categories of most serious concern.
Emergency Management Minister Bowinn Ma called on the public to follow all local water restrictions set by municipal governments and First Nations, and when possible, exceed them.
“While it is not uncommon for British Columbians to face droughts, the level and extent of drought that we are witnessing this early on in the season is deeply concerning,” she said at a press conference.
According to the B.C. River Forecast Centre, over the last year, most of the province has seen less rainfall than usual, with precipitation between 40 and 85 per cent of historical averages. The situation worsened amid record high temperatures in May, when much of B.C. saw daytime highs up to 10 C above normal.
“It’s almost getting too late, if we do get rain, to get the crops going,” Thomas told Global News. “Where I live here in the Okanagan, it’s almost upside down.
“Up north is usually wet and we’re dry, and we’re opposite right now — we have quite a bit of water and up north has nothing.”
He said his sympathies extend to farmers on Vancouver Island as well, who face the additional challenge of needing some supplies shipped in via ferry, adding to the costs already impacted by inflation.
Raquel Kolof, owner of Hough Heritage Farm in Gibsons, said drought isn’t a new challenge for residents of the Sunshine Coast. Foreseeing ongoing challenges, she said she had a well drilled in 2020 to ensure her farm’s needs would be met.
“Farming is not just about producing food. What’s important to me — if I’m going to raise healthy food — I need to do so in a healthy, functioning ecosystem,” she explained.
“During the past droughts, when everything dried up and I saw the soil die and wildlife perish … I knew that farm water use was critical to preserving our ecosystem, which will then help us grow healthy food.”
Three years later, she said the cost of having a similar well put in has ballooned to more than $100,000 — too much for other small-scale farmers to take on — while feed costs rise as well.
Farmers are now heading into what she described as “the unknown.”
“Farmers need about one inch of water per week to maintain their crops, and when they’re cut off from water, everything dies. The seeds, the seedlings, the succession plantings — 40 percent of what we grow is harvested after September 1st, so this has huge impacts on local food security and farmers ability to maintain a living.”
Clifford Yuen, co-owner of Faith, Heart, and Home-Stead farm in northwestern B.C., said he’s sending two cows with their calves off to auction next week because he can’t afford to keep them. He and his wife are giving up two pigs as well.
“The drought conditions that we’ve experienced in the northwest here have caused just such a dramatic increase in the cost due to a dramatic decrease in crop yields,” he explained.
“The calculations that I’ve done on the hay that we were able to get this year were 153-per-cent higher than we paid last year from the same farm.”
In 2022, Yuen said the family paid $75 per bale of hay — a price that has since shot up to $190. He knows of farmers who are traveling more than 1,000 kilometres to find hay, he added.
Faith, Heart, and Home-Stead’s pastures have suffered in the drought, making it more challenging to deliver on its goal of fully grass-fed product, he said.
On Thursday, Ma said the province had already asked water license holders to make voluntary reductions in their water usage and that formal restrictions may yet be implemented.
— with files from Doyle Potenteau and Negar Mojtahedi