OTTAWA — An Almonte farmer hit by this year’s drought was in tears Wednesday as volunteers unloaded 15 bales of hay donated by a Saskatoon farmer.
Lori McRae-Leach and her husband, Warren will be able to feed some of their cattle through the winter with the hay, which was donated as part of HayEast 2012, an initiative of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture with funding from the Mennonite Disaster Services of Canada.
“We really appreciate it,” Leach said as a cold autumn rain poured down on his farm. “It’s the difference of keeping your cattle or having to ship them ... we don’t have a big operation, so every one that goes has an impact.”
When McRae-Leach called to thank the farmer in Saskatoon who had donated the hay, she learned he was returning the favour after receiving hay from Eastern Ontario during the drought of 2002.
That year, farmers in Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia sent 60,000 bales of hay to Western Canada.
The federal government covered much of the transportation costs, and the army handled logistics.
Brian Hamilton from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture said he hoped both the federal and provincial governments would view the drought of 2012 as a similar disaster and step up to pay the cost of transporting hay from the prairies.
This year, farmers in the Ottawa Valley were the hardest hit by a spring drought that impacted land all over the province.
HayEast 2012 has already received 220 requests from farmers who need 70,000 bales.
Hamilton said there are 10,000 donated bales waiting in the wings “that we cannot get wheels under unless we get the financial support from our governments.”
“It’s farmers helping farmers, community helping community, and people helping people,” said Hamilton whose favourite part of the job is seeing the faces of farmers as the hay is unloaded. “It makes the geographics of this country seem very small.”
In the past two weeks, they’ve been able to deliver 15 bales to each of about a dozen beef, dairy and sheep farmers across the province.
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