Dear Editor,
To the Alberta premier, Danielle Smith.
This is urgent Danielle.
I am watching Alberta’s second-largest industry going down the tube so fast it is alarming. I have been in the ranching industry my whole life.
I remember the few blades of brown grass coming out of the thirties, the bare desolate earth and the spring of 1948, the never-ending winter.
Pickering Ranch shot 240 cows. The Poynter Ranch, the original Wilhenson and McCord where the coulees and hills were covered with dead cows; 3, 4-yr.-old steers were sent to a specialty market in Chicago every fall; foot and mouth disease in the early fifties, the market broke overnight from 32 cents a pound to 15 cents for yearlings.
The year 2002, when cow-calf pairs showed up at the market weighing 650 to 700 lbs. total weight for both animals. I never went again. Ranchers shot their cows, no market for them, shot themselves, no water, no grass, and deep trails were etched around the fence lines in the pastures.
The government shut this up quickly.
The years 2003 BSE the E. should have been left off. Packers paid Blume Ranches five cents a pound for prime bulls, and they had the gall to phone back and ask if they had more. It was such prime beef but didn’t show up as a bargain at the grocery stores.
In 2015 we struggled to buy enough hay to keep the cows, even small herds spent $30,000.
NOW I am looking at 2023. I am out of the loop, so to speak, and I am watching and listening with concern. I have never seen it this bad before and I’ve seen the events of many years.
Ranchers large and small are going to sell off their complete cow herds. Herds that have taken generations to build carefully through chosen ‘genetics’. I’ve worked in the corrals with them carefully choosing which cow to run with which bull. These cow herds will all be hanging on ‘meat hooks’ in the packing plant if something isn’t done quickly to save them.
I am not talking about when the legislature resumes. I am talking about NOW! The United Conservation Party (UCP) relied on rural Alberta to elect them, you yourself went to Brooks to run, not being sure Calgary would elect you.
I watch politicians of all stripes parade their Stetsons and boots in Calgary but not one word of the devastation occurring in the ranching industry.
The ranching industry burns thousands of gallons of diesel. If the tractors remain in the sheds, this won’t happen; supports the barley and hay industry; support the feedlots and packers; and provides consumers with a reliable source of protein. If the cow herds disappear, urban residents will not be able to afford a wiener or hamburger for their dining table.
Ranchers and farmers support their communities. If something needs done the ranching community shows up.
You appointed an ‘agriculture minister’ that doesn’t know one end of a cow from the other. That shows how far down the scale agriculture is to the UCP.
The Western Producer writes they cannot get an interview with your Agriculture Minister. Of course not, he wouldn’t be able to answer one question.
Nate Horner is our MLA. We don’t hear one word from him concerning the ranching industry.
When you are elected to the Legislature you have an obligation to the people that elected you. When you let your name stand as an MLA you are putting yourself in a ‘position of trust’. It is a serious obligation, not a ‘walk in the park’.
Agriculture Recovery Programs will not save one cow. Anyone that invested in the program soon realized the only entity that benefitted was the program itself. These programs are brought in so urban dwellers believe that governments are doing something to protect their food supply.
Worldwide right now there is a scramble to buy rice, and countries that use rice as a main food supply realize they will go hungry if there is such a shortage.
Can you realize what the outcome in our province and country will be when the meat supply disappears from the grocery shelves? Beef is the main item on any dinner table where it can be afforded. No meat, no dinner party, no barbecue, no community dinners, no restaurants and no fast food places without cheap hamburger.
Right now ranchers are sitting back wondering if they have enough grass in the pasture to feed the cows until they pull some of their best heifer calves and manage to at least keep them for replacements.
In 2002 the veterinarians thought the calves could be pulled off the cows by September. One month from now! That is a pretty small time frame to stop those cows from being slaughtered.
There will not be one animal from these ranches to market for two years. That’s how long you maintain a heifer to get an animal for market. She is fed for that period of time without one dollar of revenue.
Ranchers don’t stand around waiting for a ‘handout’ looking for something for nothing.
A previous agriculture minister for Alberta brought in freight subsidies to move hay and save the cow herd…Shirley McClellan’s ‘$100 a cow’ program so the cows didn’t go to market…UCP, not one word about helping save the second-largest industry in Alberta.
As one old rancher said, “They are all too busy sipping Jack Daniels and bailing out the oil industry, they don’t understand anything else. Jack Daniels will go down a lot harder when consumers realize the beef industry is gone and government ‘did nothing’.
A beautiful young rancher’s daughter showed me a photo of her 4-H heifer with so much pride and love for the animal. The future of Alberta’s ranches…there is no drug problem here. Her parents are concerned how they will be able to keep their cows and afford the feed to do so with a Government sitting back and doing NOTHING.
Hay and greenfeed, if you can find it, 11 cents a pound, the lowest price, some are asking more…$165 a bale, it takes six bales to winter a cow. This does not includes trucking…short haul is at least $10 a km.
This does not include the cost of running the tractor, diesel, oil and repairs, not the electricity used to water the animals, straw for bedding which is necessary in our cold winters, no veterinary costs, I.D. tags, etc.
Add up the cost of maintaining one cow for winter feed costs, no summer pasture, transport costs, it doesn’t pencil out.
I could write a book trying to get you to understand, but I truly don’t know if any of you have that ability.
UCP formed government for one reason only…the votes of rural Albertans.
I listened to Devin Deershenn stating “how wonderful it was going to have world-class entertainment in Edmonton and Calgary arenas. It reminded me of Marie Antoinette “if they have no bread, let them eat cake”.
If you have no food or power or heat in your home, you will have first-class entertainment!
Rural Albertans voted you in, rural Albertans can remove you!
Margaret Kvigstad
Metiskow, Alta.
