Farmers and ranchers in southeastern Alberta contending with bone-dry summer

When 2024 brought a better growing season for farmers in Alberta after years of facing worse drought conditions, Josh Beck was optimistic 2025 would be even better.

Beck, who's been farming for nearly 25 years, grew more confident from seeing the amount of snow in the winter, as well as promising results from the runoff and subsoil moisture. But instead, farmers in southeastern Alberta are working through a difficult, dry season, something that's become more common for about eight years, Beck said.

"We've been in so many years now of this, sometimes it feels like the status quo. We're just trying to manage the best we can," said Beck, who's one of the owners of Beck Family Farms, roughly 80 kilometres north of Medicine Hat. He grows field crops like barley and mustard, and has a cow-calf operation.

Because of the dry summer, Beck said his farm is trying not to spend any more money than it needs to, especially into a current crop that won't produce enough to cover the farm's costs, when there's no guarantee about when this dry spell will end.

"Throwing all this money out in the spring and having no way to recover it year after year gets pretty hard on people," said Beck. 

"You go into survival mode, you're not trying to spend money where you don't need to. You always have to upgrade equipment, but you're looking at cheaper pieces of equipment or equipment with more hours on it to try and spread those costs out."

Alberta's latest crop report shows much of southern and central Alberta have enjoyed normal to high precipitation levels this growing season. But it also shows that much of the Medicine Hat area and Cypress County have seen low to extremely low precipitation levels, relative to its normal amount, since April.

Bone dry summer

Over at the Sunrise Ranching Company, Dan Pahl is having a similar summer.

On his ranch northwest of Medicine Hat, Pahl said the summer has been bone dry. For him and for other farmers in the area, Pahl said he's seen crops that haven't even come out of the ground, and an increasing pest problem with grasshoppers thriving in the dry conditions and mowing down grass that should be for cattle.

"I have never seen a crop where it hasn't germinated, where there hasn't been enough moisture in the ground to even germinate," said Pahl.

Like Beck, Pahl notes that last year brought surprisingly good rainfall. But it came amid a period of six to eight years where drought has been a continuous problem.

"It just kind of keeps getting worse and worse, because we just can't get ahead," said Pahl.

"We get a year like last year where we get some decent rainfall, and then everybody is super optimistic. We're planting crops, we're planning for great years. And then the tap just shuts off for us."

Pahl can only produce roughly half the feed he needs for his cattle, nearly doubling his overall costs. In the drier conditions, Pahl is growing roughly 60 to 65 per cent of what he typically can run, which is all he can muster until he gets more clarity about what the future will hold.

"Obviously we can't predict what mother nature's going to give us, but we've just got to kind of wait and see what's going to happen," said Pahl, adding that farmers were optimistic about the amount of moisture they saw back in February and March, before it all just stopped.

More rain could be on the way

The dry conditions were exacerbated by lower than normal rainfall in June, said Christy Climenhaga, a scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada. The Medicine Hat area received only about 41 per cent of its normal precipitation last month, in what's already a more arid area of the province.

The dry conditions are also being felt just over the border in nearby southwest Saskatchewan, where risk of fire and farmers' struggles to make feed have worsened to the point that several municipalities have declared states of emergency because of drought.

Farmers in other parts of Alberta were also concerned about drought before a welcome heavy rainfall hit. But the large system of rain that cities like Calgary felt haven't been seen yet in southeastern Alberta.

"You can see very large fluctuations because of the nature of how some of this precipitation falls. You look at June, and we had that very substantial rainfall event in the Calgary area dropping a lot of moisture into the foothills, into Calgary, and then not quite as much as you move toward Medicine Hat," said Climenhaga.

Climenhaga said below-normal precipitation is still projected for southern Alberta throughout the next few months, but she noted it's difficult to predict long-term when one storm can change that outlook. 

And just in time, she added that a little rain is expected in the region later this week, which could be a boon for farmers.

Beck is holding out that a timely shower or two will help his late-season crops turn out, even if the early-season crops are in trouble. He and Pahl also both noted that a very strong cattle market has been a saviour for many in the industry this year, and Pahl projected it should remain strong for a year or two.

Retaining some optimism and looking forward to rainier days is part and parcel of the industry they work in, Beck said.

"We were hoping that 2025 was the turning point, but maybe 2026 will be," said Beck. 

"I mean, if you're going to be in agriculture, you have to be optimistic. And it's not always easy, but you have to think about next year."