Waterfalls of sawdust pouring out of the backs of trucks are a beautiful sight to Saanich farmer Rob Galey.
"It's raining wood," said a relieved Galey at the family farm on Blenkinsop Road. This week, he managed to obtain one of the most coveted of materials these days -- sawdust, once only seen as a waste product. "We've got a whole year's worth now."
Galey's Cornmaze 'N' Market uses sawdust around its berries and in its petting farm. Hog fuel -- bark and wood chips -- goes on corn-maze trails.
B.C. mills are shutting down in the wake of the U.S.'s plunging lumber market. When mills aren't running, they don't produce sawdust needed by everyone from dairy farmers and blueberry growers to plant nurseries, wood-pellet manufacturers and horse stables.
This is the latest financial blow to hit the agriculture industry, where rising fuel and feed costs are already cutting into the bottom line.
Some buyers have been able to get sawdust and are using it sparingly. Some are stockpiling, but others have run out and are getting desperate.
Alternatives are being tried, but kiln-dried sawdust is preferred because it is clean, easy to handle, absorbent and typically costs less.
Vancouver Island isn't alone. Sawdust supplies are running low in the U.S. and on the mainland.
"It's a struggle every day," Jerry Delange, owner of Alray Shavings Ltd. in Chilliwack, said yesterday. "It's a bad situation." He delivers to regular customers with dairy farms and poultry operations.
The short supply of sawdust and rising fuel prices have led to price increases. Delange charges $75 to $90 per unit (a unit equals 7.5 cubic yards), up from $35 to $40 per unit a year ago.
Blueberry growers and nurseries use sawdust at the base of their plants to control weeds and keep the ground moist. Dairy farmers rely on it to provide soft bedding for their cows. It keeps their herd comfortable, clean and dry, all factors contributing to a good milk supply.
Chris Groenendijk, Island Milk Producers Association president, uses about four units per week of sawdust. He's more concerned now about availability over price.
Like many farmers, his Holsteins have a mattress in their stalls, supplemented with sawdust. "The cows kind of take care of everything. You take care of your cows and they take care of you."
He's been able to get enough sawdust for his Chemainus dairy farm, but some smaller producers cannot get any at all, he said. They are resorting to sawdust made from green wood, with a higher moisture content, or sand, which can be abrasive on barn floors and is heavy.
Saanich Peninsula dairy farmer Sarah Pendray has stocked up on sawdust delivered by her long-term supplier. "I'm not going to complain about price either. It is just a sign of the times."
Estelle Shaughnessy, 44, part-owner of North Star Stables in Courtenay, has "zero" sawdust. "It's scary because you don't know where it is going to end.... It is just very tough to figure out what to do."
She spent several hundred dollars for wood pellets, made for stoves, to put down in 21 stalls and more pellets will have to be added as stalls are cleaned. But pellets don't absorb as well as sawdust and stalls are being misted with water to try to break down the pellets, Shaughnessy said.
By continuing with the current product, "I would have to increase my board by 50 per cent just to try and break even. I can't do that because then I won't have customers."
She blames the problem on raw logs being exported from B.C. instead of being processed in mills here.
D.W. Jackson Trucking, owned by Sharon and Wayne Jackson, is parked now that sawdust supplies have dried up for now. "I tell my customers, 'If you find anyone else, give me a call,'" Sharon Jackson said. "You should see the length of my [waiting] list. It's pages."
She's heard of people using baled or compressed shavings, which cost more than regular sawdust. "There's no way that a large stable could do it."Times Colonist
