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Community Corner

Rain Deals Blow to Hay Production, Prices to Soar

Local ranches to experience hay shortage this year. Rescue groups dependent on donations are in crisis.

Local horse owners are facing a serious hay shortage, and unfortunately, many of them are not aware of it yet—unless they are running their own ranches or buying their own hay. The news is buried in the financial section of the newspapers and probably won’t hit the front pages until it’s critical.

Our long, cold, rainy winter made the hills green, and filled our lakes and rivers to the brim, but the excess also dealt a devastating blow to the state’s hay production.

For local horse people, this will mean a strain on family budgets. For horse rescue operations, it is a crisis.

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Hay costs are rising significantly for three main reasons:

• California’s unusually wet, cold winter and spring

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• The brutal drought and heat through the rest of the country

• A growing trend for farmers to shift from hay production to government-subsidized corn for ethanol use

“When there’s a hay shortage, prices will go up,” said owner of Moss Beach Ranch, Rich Allen, who knows all about this because every spring he hauls tons of hay from the Northern California area to his Moss Beach facility, working directly with the farmers who grow and sell hay.

“A lot of farmers just don’t have the hay they are used to producing. The price went from $135 a ton to $220 ton this year,” said Allen, who estimates he spends about $60,000 a year on hay. “And if the hay shortage gets bad, that price can go up even more. In 2008 the price of hay doubled. Hay is a commodity, so it goes up and down with supply and demand.”

To prepare for a possible hay shortage, Allen always buys hay for the year in advance because “if you don’t, you could be in trouble if there’s a big shortage and prices go up,” he said. “I gambled that there would be a hay shortage so I paid a premium price so I have a stable supply of feed for the year. If the hay shortage doesn’t come to pass, well, at least I’ve covered myself. With 120 horses to feed and running a boarding facility like I do, you have to have stable consistent feed.”

Still, acquiring good hay at a reasonable price these days is a challenge. According to John Bellandi from , “…the hay situation is critical and will be more severe November through December. Eighty percent of the top hay typically goes to cattle ranchers, who are willing and able to pay top dollar … barn owners are having difficulty keeping costs down.”

Like ranch owners, horse boarders may also feel the cost of hay going up. Lazy “H” Ranch in Half Moon Bay may be forced to increase their boarding rates to compensate for the higher price of hay.

“We’ve been through his before with the fuel crisis and the hay got over $20 a bale that year,” said Lazy “H” Ranch owner Breen Hofmann. “When prices get up this high I’m having a hard time seeing that we won’t have to raise our boarding rates. It’s tough to raise the rates overnight so we’ll see how high the price gets and go from there gradually.”

Last year, Hofmann said he paid $12 a bale. This year it was $17 a bale.

“And I predict that price will go up even higher this winter,” said Hofmann, who with 14 horse boarders at his ranch recently stocked up on 1,000 bales from Azevedo Hay & Grain in Half Moon Bay, which should get him through next May, he said.

“There use to be miles and miles of hay growing in the Central Valley, but now it’s all been replaced by grapes, so on top of the weather hurting the supply, we’ve also shrunk down the area that use to farm hay.”

Government-subsidized crops (such as corn for ethanol use) are also affecting farmers’ choices of what to grow. “The government said June 9 that, for the first time ever, more of the crop will be used to make fuel than animal feed,” according to the SF Chronicle’s Bloomberg report.

For those involved in horse rescue, the hay situation in California is a crisis. Rescue groups like Equine Rescue Center, which recently moved its operation from ranch land near Pigeon Point Lighthouse to 3,000 acres of pastureland in Hollister, depend on donations, and many sympathetic donors are now stretched to the max trying to feed their own horses.

Horses’ Honor Rescue is another organization that provides a permanent sanctuary for horses that have been rescued from abuse, neglect, and abandonment and even kill auctions. With the impending hay crisis, unemployment ongoing, and horses increasingly difficult to maintain, it's likely that more people will continue to give up or even abandon their horses.

For more information or to make donations to Equine Rescue Center and/or Horses’ Honor Rescue go to www.equinerescuecenter.com and www.horseshonor.org.

 

Reporting from Half Moon Bay and Moss Beach by .

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