Alternative feeds discussed by Ag. Commissioner Troxler
By LAURA THORNBURG
Staff
About 100 farmers from Alleghany and other counties in the region
gathered at the Upper Mountain Research Station in Laurel Springs
Sept. 5, where Agricultural Commissioner Steve Troxler spoke about
the drought during a workshop on alternative livestock feeds.
Addressing the crowd standing by multiple bales of hay, Troxler said,
"I think this is a very important part of what we're trying to do
with hay relief in North Carolina. I want to thank especially Lynn
Howard and Bill Yarborough who have worked so hard on this hay relief
effort. This problem that we have is a statewide problem. I think if
you were going to design a growing season, this would not be the one
that you would want. Between the freezes...the drought and record
temperatures, mostly all of North Carolina is now suffering. We have
85 counties that have been declared disaster areas by the governor
asking the secretary of agriculture for a declaration. What this
means right now is there will be low-interest loans available. That's
not hay. But the good news is we do think you will qualify as cattle
producers and forest producers for the disaster program that was
signed into law by the President.
"There is very little real high quality hay in North Carolina because
of the growing conditions that we've had and to make it worse,
Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Virginia and South Carolina
are all in the same boat that we are. We've had to think outside the
box. We've got to find something to feed the cattle this winter and
we think this is part of the solution. There seems to be plenty
available in eastern North Carolina."
Troxler offered an immediate solution to the problem would be to use
damaged soybeans to make hay. However, transportation costs to
distribute the forage also presents a problem.
"I have made a grant application to Golden LEAF Foundation...that we
could help defray some of this transportation costs to move this hay,
particularly from eastern North Carolina up here," he said. "That's
all in the works and we're working as fast as we can because we do
know the need is here. We do know that there's going to be bad
weather, so we want to get this done as soon as quickly as possible.
What it's basically going to take is a commitment from you to go
ahead and sign up and make a deal on these products so we can start
to get them moved up here. There's plenty available it seems right
now, but as time goes on, if we were to get a tropical storm or
hurricane or something in eastern North Carolina, that's going to
damage the quality and it's going to slow things down."
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