Rain-soaked livestock producers in Saskatchewan will be eligible for provincial funding to move either feed to livestock or livestock to feed.
The province’s new Feed and Forage Program (SFFP), announced Tuesday, pledges help with those transport costs, as well as $30 per acre for producers to reseed hay, forage or pasture land wrecked by “unprecedented” excess moisture seen in several parts of the province during the 2010 growing season.
Producers who own, lease, custom-graze or custom-feed beef and dairy cattle, bison, elk, horses, sheep, goats, deer, reindeer, caribou, llamas and alpacas are all eligible to apply.
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All forage producers, including forage seed producers, are eligible for the reseeding portion of the program.
Application forms will be accepted by the provincial ag ministry’s financial programs branch until Sept. 30, 2011. Total payment per applicant is capped at $50,000.
Hauling
To get funds under the SFFP’s transportation component, producers must be the individual or entity responsible for costs that are related to the transport of eligible feed or eligible animals and incurred from June 1, 2010 to Aug. 1, 2011.
The funding is meant to cover costs for producers who have to move additional feed to their livestock or have to transport livestock to alternative locations for feeding or grazing because of excess moisture.
Producers will be paid on the total number of animals, tonnes of feed and miles moved, rather than on the number of loads. The minimum eligible haul is 15 miles per load.
Payments will be made at a rate of 22 cents per tonne per loaded mile for silage, hay, straw, greenfeed and “concentrated feedstuffs” such as feed grain or screenings.
For producers who instead hauled livestock to alternative feeding sites, payments will be 10 cents per head per loaded mile for beef cattle, dairy cattle, bison, elk and horses, and four cents per loaded mile for sheep, goats, deer, reindeer, caribou, llamas and alpacas.
Reseeding
Payments under the reseeding component will be made on land that was damaged and then reseeded from June 1, 2010 to Aug. 1, 2011. Damage due to excess moisture must be the reason for reseeding, the province said.
Eligible land must be reseeded to a perennial forage or perennial forage with an annual cover crop. Also, applicants under the SFFP reseeding component must not have received or be receiving funding from the Canada-Saskatchewan Excess Moisture Program (EMP) for reseeding of the same land.
“This program will help those producers facing feed shortages and also help them re-establish their hay and pasture land for future years,” David Marit, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities and a councillor from the southern RM of Willow Bunch, said in the province’s release.
The province’s move comes the day after the latest round of criticism from the opposition New Democrats, who reiterated Monday that livestock producers have been asking for payments of $150 per breeding animal, $40 per acre to repair grasslands and ad hoc payments to offset the cost of hauling feed.
Affected producers “are feeling financial pressure and have been backed into a corner with nowhere to turn,” NDP leader and ag critic Dwain Lingenfelter said in a release.
