Business picking up for feed grain and forage listing service

Source: Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food

A free “online bulletin board” maintained on the Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food (SAF) website can be a big help to provincial cattle producers who find themselves facing a shortage or an excess of feed heading into the winter.

“It’s a forum for farmers to advertise the sale of products and services,” explained Andre Bonneau, a Forage Conversion Specialist with SAF.

The Feed Grain and Forage Listing Service connects farmers looking to buy and sell forage and feed resources throughout Saskatchewan, as well as neighbouring provinces and states like Alberta, Manitoba, Montana and North Dakota – all at no charge to users.

The tool also provides postings for popular custom farm services such as grazing and feeding, cutting and baling, seeding, spraying, trucking, combining, grain drying and manure hauling.

The listing contains interactive maps that enable users to see, by rural municipality, where there are postings for available baled forage, standing forage, feed grain and various custom services. A complete listing for the entire province is also accessible.

Another valuable tool on the listing service is a summary of the baled forage and feed grain prices that sellers have posted on the site. “It’s a weighted average of the asking price for all the forage and feed listed, so it gives you a fairly good idea of what the range of prices are, and what the average prices are,” said Bonneau.

The Feed Grain and Forage Listing Service has proven to be one of SAF’s most popular and long-serving programs. According to Bonneau, “There's been a manual version, a hard copy, since the early 1980s, at least. The electronic version started up in the mid-90s. It became an electronic, self-service bulletin board about the time the Internet started getting popular.”

There are currently around 200 postings for available feed products and custom services listed on the site. “Usage is generally highest this time of year, both looking and selling,” Bonneau noted.

“We get probably anywhere from 15 to 20 calls a week with submissions for advertising. Because it is mainly forage and feed that are listed, it gets busier around this time of year. It slows down in the summer, when it is mainly things like custom work and standing forage that are offered for sale.”

To advertise a product or service, or to browse the available listings, Internet users can visit the SAF website at www.agr.gov.sk.ca and click on the “Feed Grain and Forage Listing” link.

Farmers who do not have Internet access can call SAF’s Agriculture Knowledge Centre at 1-866-457-2377 to have items posted for sale on their behalf or to have a copy of the listing sent to them. “Some RMs will also download the listing right off the Internet and post it in the RM office,” Bonneau noted, “so that might be another option for producers.”

For more information, contact:

Andre Bonneau, Forage Conversion Specialist
Agriculture Knowledge Centre
Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food
Phone: (306) 694-3721