Our neighbours to the north are calling their drought-like conditions dire.

The council for the RM of West Interlake made a resolution at their meeting earlier this week to seek out help from both the provincial and federal governments due to a feed shortage.

Reeve Arnthor Jonasson is also a cattle producer. He says it has been very dry for a long time.

"We've had very little rain since the snow melt," says Jonasson. "The rains that have come have been very spotty and the hot, windy days in between have sucked up most of the moisture. The hay crop is probably 20 to 30 per cent of normal in our area."

He says 2018 wasn't much better, and two bad years in a row makes it difficult for producers.

This was the resolution passed by council at their meeting this week."Last year was a dry year and our average hay crop was about one bale per acre and this year it's going less. It's going about half-a-bail per acre," says Jonasson. "These are crops where you're used to getting three to four bales per acre. There's a huge deficit of feed in our area."

The fear is that some producers will have to sell off half of their herds. If that happens, he predicts it will take several years before those producers are back up and running.

"What's becoming critical right now is our pasture situation," says Jonasson. "We can't seem to find a rain in the forecast and many pastures of people are looking ahead to start feeding cattle in a week, or maybe two weeks and water in their watering systems is running out."

He says buying feed is not an option because of the high expense of hauling it to their community.

A meeting for council is scheduled on Tuesday to decide how to move forward. Farmers will be looking for a lot of rain between now and then.