Alberta Beef Producers has realized its mistake in overlooking forages and now wants to be more involved in the forage industry, said Karin Schmid, the organization’s beef production specialist.
Forages were overlooked for several reasons, she said.
“Let’s face it, forage research isn’t that sexy,” Schmid said at the recent AGM of the Alberta Forage Industry Network.
“It’s not flashy, it’s long term and it takes a long time to get results. That’s not where the funding dollars went, unfortunately.”
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Many beef producers believed forage producers should fund their own research, but it’s now recognized that was impractical, she said.
“How are you supposed to do that without a checkoff system or a way of collecting industry funds?” Schmid said. “That was a very big misfortune from the industry side and kind of an overlook on our part.”
Federal and provincial research dollars for forage have plummeted since about 1985 and five-year funding cycles have hit the forage industry harder than any other industry, she said.
Forage research needs to be long term and a five-year cycle simply doesn’t give researchers enough time, Schmid said. As well, the lack of a secure source of funding makes it more difficult for scientists to plan research programs, she said.
“Forage just got taken for granted,” she said. “Guys would plant their stands and leave them there for 20 years and expect their yields, gains and cattle and everything to be the same without any changes in management.
“We’ve realized that we need to pull up our socks or we’re going to be in some serious trouble.”
Fortunately, there are now forage-related initiatives in the works in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, she added.
