In an update with journalists that day, Agriculture Minister Pam Alexis said she knows that many farmers will be facing hard business decisions that may see them having to sell some of their cattle in the days and weeks ahead. Many of this year’s wildfires have focused on B.C.’s central and northern Interior, with nearly 290 of the 400 active wildfires burning in the regions as of Tuesday (July 18). Meanwhile wildfires have exacerbated the situation. READ MORE: A couple in New Hazelton “harvests the sun” in a solar panel operated ranch READ MORE: Bulkley Valley’s golden entrepreneurs That, mixed with a lack of rain at the beginning of the summer has led to shortages – seen all the way down Highway 16 as far as McBride, he said. “That moisture actually ran off from the ground.” “All the snow melted off before the frost in the ground defrosted,” Wittwer said. Eighty per cent of feed is grown in spring when the weather conditions suit the needs of crops such as hay.īut because of the lack of snow in the winter season, the ground stayed frozen and hard, almost unusable. The increasing dry weather, summer-over-summer, hasn’t allowed crops to get the moisture they need to survive, he said. “I’ve never seen it this bad in 30 years,” Wittwer said in an interview with Black Press Media. Wittwer, from W Diamond Ranch near Smithers, has been farming since 1994. In all of Eugen Wittwer’s years as a farmer, this summer’s hay shortage in the Bulkley Valley is the worst he’s ever seen.
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