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By Regan Tate

Agriculture

Drought conditions lead to state of agricultural disaster in Cypress County

Jun 7, 2022 | 5:59 PM

Medicine Hat, AB–Cypress County has declared a local state of agricultural disaster after years of drought conditions.

“We’ve had this bunch of rain in the last few days, but some (areas) haven’t had any,” said Reeve Dan Hamilton during the council meeting June 7. “We’re trying to work as a region in Southern Alberta for this drought issue.”

Council voted to declare the disaster for the second year in a row. Numerous councillors expressed concern over current growing conditions, including a lack of precipitation, extreme heat, and wind. All of these have taken their toll on Cypress County crops with the effects felt from farms and ranches, all the way down to consumers due to shortages.

“We’ve been discussing it for the last couple of months in council,” said Hamilton. “We’ve had a drought in Cypress County for the past five to six years so it’s been on our radar.”

Hamilton says the county needs more rain.

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“Even though we’ve had rain the past few days, it’s not enough to replace what’s been depleted the last five years.”

Aside from awareness, the decision to declare the state of agricultural disaster aims to make provincial and federal governments aware so that they might be able to offer relief or other funding for producers. Agricultural businesses could be forced to shut down without assistance which would compound food chain problems in the future.

“We have some ranchers that are most likely going to need help,” said Hamilton. “If we don’t get rain in the next few weeks, the bad thing is there won’t be any feed for the ranchers to keep their cattle.”

Cypress County was one of more than 40 Alberta municipalities to declare an agricultural disaster in 2021. Prior to that Cypress had last declared an agricultural emergency in 2015.

The Alberta Crop Report showed either poor (36.5 %) or fair (49.7 %) pasture growing conditions as of May 31 for the south part of the province.