Dehydration Underway

FTLComm - Tisdale - Saturday, June 22, 2002

The nominal operational goal for Tisdale Alfalfa Dehydration Plant is to begin harvesting and processing field alfalfa on June the first each year. Since we began reporting in the spring of 1998 the plant has fired up on June 6th, June 12th and on other years right in that first week of June but this year the unusually cold and dry growing conditions have retarded the development of the crop and it was only Friday morning that the first cut of the crop year 2002 began with processing beginning mid afternoon. Though this has shortened the production run for this year there is still hope that rain and warm temperatures will bring on health growth and provide the product needed for this industry. At one time Tisdale and the many other alfalfa dehydration plants had all of there production sold to Asia but in the past two years the domestic market has expanded as the Asian market all but dried up entirely. Asian buyers are back demanding production and now less than half the producers are still in business. The low prices have moved farmers who were formerly selling their alfalfa for dehydration to look for other better markets and many continue to grow alfalfa but have switched from fodder to seed production. The Arborfield dehydration plant was having trouble finding enough farm production to fill their needs this year. In other years the dehydration plants have relied upon bales for some of their products but this past year's production was down and baled fodder was being bought up by the drought ravaged areas from Pincer Creek to Southwestern Saskatchewan. No bales were processed in the fall of 2001.