From snow to harvest, Alberta farmers pull through

Sep 19, 2014

Not too long ago, Southern Alberta had its first taste of winter - a blast of snow in the second week of September.

It wasn’t a pretty sight, or at least for this time of year, especially for farmers who were in the midst of harvest or ready to jump into their combines to start the long haul of taking off the crops. Prior to the snowstorm, many farmers were harvesting in 20 C weather, consequently the snow was a bit of a shock. Only about 13 per cent of Alberta’s crop had been harvested when the snow fell on September 8th.

Farmers say that the rare early September snowstorm that flattened crops will make harvest tough. The storm crushed fields, which will make it hard for combines to get at the crops since harvesting equipment will be running slower in order to salvage as much of the crop as they can. Thankfully things have warmed up a bit since the snow fall, allowing farmers to get back to what they do best – harvesting.

While things are looking brighter, there will likely be some economic consequences to the earlier than normal snowy weather. The quality of the crops won’t be as good as they once were, which means farmers will get a lower return on their grain. That coupled with paying farm workers additional hours to run farm equipment to harvest often thousands of acres in a relevantly short period of time. But farmers aren’t left with much of a choice, the crops eventually have to come off.

Brandon Gibb, owner and operator of R&B Gibb Farms Ltd. tweeted (@rbgibbfarms) on Sept. 17th about the harvest progress. “A week ago this field was under snow, now we are finally combining it #harvest14 #fromthefield,” he said in a tweet. Gibb who is from Hillspring, AB, frequently includes the #fromthefield hashtag in his tweets, to report what is happening in the field. The tweet refers to the photos below:

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.