Weather conditions lead to shortage of quality hay for sale, drive up prices
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AMHERST - During the summer months, goats tended by Hope Crolius earn their keep by eating. As the key employees for her business, Goat Girls Brush Clearing, the six goats clear people's land one mouthful at a time.
But over the winter months, Crolius needs about 100 bales of quality hay to get her goats through until they can start grazing in the spring.
This year, compared to other years, Crolius and other livestock owners are having a hard time finding good quality hay for sale locally.
"Last year I had no problem finding hay, and I paid about $4 or $4.50 a bale," said Crolius, who keeps her goats at Simple Gifts Farm on North Pleasant Street. "Two months ago I started calling around and realized that nobody had any hay to sell. It was a terrible year for making hay and everyone said they only had enough for their own animals."
Local farmers agree a shortage of good hay in the area is driving prices up and causing some buyers to seek out out-of-state hay.
While the problem is a big one for some local farmers, it is not likely to affect the prices of beef or other agricultural products, said Neil Tietz, senior editor at Hay & Forage Grower magazine. Tietz said the increasing cost of corn and other grains fed to livestock is much more likely to affect costs to consumers of beef, lamb and other animal products.
In Massachusetts, the shortage is the result of one of the wettest growing seasons on record that also included a tropical storm and an October snowstorm. But according to one local seller of hay, the problem is not just a local one.
"The shortage of hay - especially hay that is of good quality (no mold, dust or weeds) - is throughout the U.S," said Michael Antonellis, who cuts and sells hay in Deerfield. "Very few areas had ideal conditions for making hay."
According to the National Climatic Data Center's data for August, 26 percent of the contiguous U.S. was affected by severe to extreme drought, which means poor growing conditions for grass. Twenty-nine percent was categorized as severely to extremely wet, including New England, which makes it difficult for hay to dry properly in the field.
Tietz said the severity of the shortage varies by region. "Montana and North and South Dakota had a good year and hay is still available there at fairly reasonable prices, but it costs so much to ship it to the other states that need it that the price can double."
In addition to the poor hay-making weather, another trend contributed to the nationwide shortage, according to Tietz
"There's been a reduction in the number of acres used for hay production because the prices of corn, soy beans, cotton and wheat have gone up. They're so valuable now that farmers took out their hay and put in these crops instead," Tietz said by telephone from the magazine's office in Minneapolis. "It's been a trend for a while but it really happened in a big way this year."
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service, overall U.S. acreage of alfalfa and other hay dropped 4 percent in the last year, bringing the total reduction in acreage to 12 percent over the last six years.
Antonellis mainly sells hay to horse stables and said the shortage is especially affecting owners of horses, goats, llamas and other animals that are picky eaters and need high quality hay.
This year, he was only able to harvest 4,000 bales of hay, substantially less than the 5,500 he usually gets off the 40 acres of Deerfield farmland. The problem was undoubtedly the wet conditions, he said.
Farmers need at least three days to make hay under normal conditions, because it has to dry completely before being baled or it will become moldy or dusty. "There were very few stretches of good weather," he said. "Our longest was in October and only lasted eight days."
When the fields were dry enough to drive tractors on, he and his family did everything they could to dry the hay, but were not always successful, Antonellis said. "The ground was so saturated, it was hard to get all the moisture out of the hay even if you were working it three times a day," he said.
To make matters worse, Antonellis lost a 25-acre field of second cutting, ready for harvest, when rain from Tropical Storm Irene caused the Deerfield River that bordered it to flood. "We got totally washed out," he said. "It was under 15 feet of water, and in some spots it deposited 12 inches of silt on the field."
David McCulloch, a hay dealer who mows over 50 acres in fields around the Hilltowns, also lost acres of ready-to-cut hay to Irene after his 15-acre field off of River Road in Williamsburg was flooded by the swollen Mill River. "I lost 300 bales," he said. "The grass was all flattened and full of silt and debris."
McCulloch, of Goshen, said he only got about 9,000 bales this year, which is 1,000 to 2,000 fewer bales than normal. "First cutting was down 20, maybe 25 percent, but second cutting was a disaster," he said. "We got all that rain, and then on top of that, the hurricane."
To make up for the weeks when he could not cut hay, he was still cutting hay at the end of October, when the snowstorm flattened a lot of his fields. When the snow melted, McCulloch cut hay until Thanksgiving in the salvageable fields.
He said that he has seen the regional nature of the shortage at the Northampton Cooperative Livestock Auction in Whately, where hay is often sold in 50- to 70-bale lots.
"The people who used to come from Vermont and bring down hay to sell, they just don't have any to sell this year because they're in the same situation," he said. McCulloch said that in order to stay competitive, he did not raise his price yet this year, even though fuel, fertilizer and other necessities are costing him more.
Most producers are raising their prices though, Antonellis said. "It all comes down to simple economics; there is a high demand and low supply and the price is following it," he said.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service, the average price of hay in the U.S. in November was $181 per ton, up nearly 65 percent from last November, when it was $110 per ton.
Antonellis said prices will only get worse during the winter, as people who have limited storage space will need to buy more to make it through until spring. "Some are predicting prices will double by March of 2012, and it wouldn't surprise me at all," he said.
Crolius, who said she cannot buy hay at the Whately auction because the quality is too low for her "finicky" goats, called seven local farmers before she found one who would "begrudgingly" sell to her. But she is paying $6 a bale - $1.50 to $2 more than she paid last year.
She said the increased cost will be reflectd in the rates she charges clients who hire her goats. "It will be one more cost that I'll have to cover and pass along to my clients," she said. "It won't be a deal-breaker, but any additional costs hav to be recouped."
Goat Girls Brush Clearing is an auxiliary business to Crolius's main livelihood; she owns a gardening business called Artemis Garden Consultants.
"I only have six goats and only need about 100 bales, so I can handle it," Crolius said of the price. "But for people who have to buy a lot, I'm sure it's a huge problem."
Joanne Huff, owner of Full of Grace Farm of Stockbridge Road in Hadley, needs approximately 1,000 bales of hay to feed the 13 horses that live in the stable. Huff said in the past she has always been able to find the hay locally and for a reasonable price.
"But this year there is just less, and the quality has changed," she said. "If you do find something dry, the cost has gone way up. I know people paying $11 or $12 a bale for good hay from the few guys that still have it."
Huff said she has had to resort to buying hay from New York state for at least $6.50 a bale; a dollar and a half more than she paid last year. "We don't have a choice, though," she said. "We can't feed moldy hay."
Antonellis said his family has been sold out of their own hay for weeks, but the family business, Antonellis Ag Services, brokers hay from farmers in upstate New York. He delivers it to buyers, mostly horse owners, all over Massachusetts and into parts of New Hampshire.
Because of the shortage, he is traveling farther than ever before to find the hay, he said, which is part of the reason he is charging about $6.50 to $7 a bale for delivery.
It would seem that the increased demand for hay and the rising prices would mean a nice profit for sellers and brokers of hay, including Antonellis Ag Services. But Antonellis said his business is really hurting from the decreased production in the region.
"I usually broker that hay all winter, but farms in New York are in the same situation. I'm out 1,500 bales that I'd usually be selling," he said. "So I'm turning people away, sometimes two, three times a day."
Crolius, who has owned her goats for 1½ years, said she has not decided if she will continue to buy the Amherst hay at $6 a bale, or if she will have to head to the auction in Whately or import it from out-of-state. Talk about the price going up later in the winter has her worried, too. "I haven't been in the business long enough to know if this is just something that happens and people try to prepare for, or if this is really just a terrible year," she said.
Looking ahead to next year, Tietz said the hay supply could be limited again. "It looks like some of the hay acreage will be put back into production, but if there are any weather problems next year, the shortage will continue into 2012 and 2013," he said.
Rebecca Everett can be reached at reverett@gazettenet.com.
