Funding uncertainty has forced the Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association to lay off its five field staff effective March 31.
President Edgar Hammermeister said the association applied to its two funding sources – the federal and provincial governments – but has not heard if its applications were approved or rejected.
“We simply have not heard anything,” he said.
The federal government supplied most of the organization’s funding through the agriculture department’s greenhouse gas mitigation program, which was worth almost $350,000 a year for the last five years.
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The end of March also marks the conclusion of a three-year funding agreement between the SSCA and the province. Hammermeister said the agreement contributed about $25,000 in its last year.
Although funding could still come through, he said it wouldn’t be fair to the field agrologists to keep them on staff until the last minute.
The SSCA will have enough money to maintain its office, he said, but couldn’t find a way to keep its five agrologists, who have a total of 53 years of experience.
“Farmers have learned to appreciate having that independent opinion,” Hammermeister said. “SSCA staff were quite often the first people contacted.”
The association will discontinue its field demonstration plots and won’t initiate new research projects. The annual direct seeding conference will still go ahead.
He said the association used to have diverse funding sources but that changed as companies merged and consolidated. The SSCA has looked for other money and its national organization did prepare a proposal for one year of bridge funding to carry on some of the greenhouse gas mitigation work it had been doing.
Doug McKell, executive director of the Soil Conservation Council of Canada, said Saskatchewan relied heavily on its share of a five-year contract to deliver soil and nutrient management programs on behalf of the greenhouse gas mitigation program. Other provinces have more funding sources.
Alex Milton, who speaks for the greenhouse gas program, said there has been no clear direction from the new government on the future of the program. It had been reviewed last fall before the federal election.
“Everything has just come to a crashing halt,” Milton said.
The department has been working with its partners to try to continue delivering information it believes is valuable to farmers, he added.
“We’re trying to get something on an interim basis for the next six months. We hate to lose that link.”
The federal budget is not likely to be announced until late April.
“We’re optimistic about some version of the programs going forward after April 1,” Milton said.
