CCA Says Hay West Program Is Key

Dec 23, 2021

The President of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association says 2021 was a rough year for agriculture.

Bob Lowe says fires in BC the drought from western side of Ontario West took up a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of mental anguish from producers.

"We're all familiar with droughts but not one that basically covers western North America. So it's not a matter of going 100 or 200 miles to find feed you go to the Hay West program from the East Coast, and we're bringing corn up from Iowa."

He says the Hay West Program has been very beneficial for producers.

"If you were one of the people that got some hay it may have made the difference between selling off part of your herd or all of it."

So far, the Hay West Program has resulted in feed for just under 17 thousand cows already, with another 100 million more pounds of hay from Eastern Canada lined up for delivery to the West.

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

We're a 6th generation family farm in southeast Iowa showing the real ups and downs of pig farming and row crop farming. No script, just the work. Subscribe and follow along.

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