Despite recent rains, Foothills County Council is officially a disaster zone. .At its regular Wednesday meeting, county councillors formally invoked a ’municipal agricultural disaster’ for the entire region southwest of Calgary as of June 28 due to the ongoing drought and current crop conditions..In a statement, the county said varying winter snowpack and lack of early seasonal moisture, along with a lack of growing seasonal precipitation and unseasonably high temperatures, led to poor growing conditions. .To date, eastern areas of the county received less than 35% of their average annual rainfall with some areas seeing less than two-inches in total to date. Despite substantial rainfall in June, soil moisture reserves “remain severely depleted.”. 2023 droughtDrought models os of June 12. .Hot, dry conditions have caused poor germination and early maturity. Most cereal crops are in the boot to flowering stage and any additional moisture will have little effect on 2023 yields, the county said. Roughly 50%-90% of annual crops and perennial forage stands have been affected with the areas south of Blackie and High River being the most severely affected..In addition, pasture growth in many areas of the county has been nominal. As a result, producers have had to keep livestock on feed or turned out into hay fields that are needed to produce winter feed. With the lack of suitable pasture and high winter feeding costs, many producers will face the hard decision to disperse or reduce herd sizes by selling off their animals..The declaration of a MAD does not automatically trigger funding or program responses. Rather, “the declaration serves to bring awareness to the provincial and federal governments, as well as the public, of the challenging conditions our municipal agricultural producers are facing.”.Reeve Delilah Miller told City News the county made the declaration to allow farmers to access insurance programs..“There’s a lot of angst out there, of course, because anytime you have crops that are failing, that’s a financial disaster, as well as it’s a food disaster and a production disaster for all of our livestock producers as well,” she said..“It certainly trickles down to the economy on how much food is produced on the farmland.”
