Cow-Calf Committee Chair Ben Schrader says the producers have asked Agriculture Minister George Groeneveld to start the process of providing Agri-Recovery Program support to recover from the impacts of this year's drought.

"Part of what we're looking at is a lot of people started feeding a lot earlier than normal", he says, "pastures have been severely beaten down in many, many cases and these pastures need to have an extended rest in 2010 so we're looking at a long wintering period because of that and hopefully of course the drought would break but at this point conditions are quire dire for some folks".

Schrader says Alberta's Agriculture Minister needs to contact his federal counterpart to launch Agri-Recovery for cattlemen.