Saskatchewan landowner Kerry Holderness foresees a day when farmers are paid for maintaining a greener, more natural landscape.
One day, he predicts, when society recognizes the value of Canada’s disappearing environmental resources, producers and landowners will be rewarded financially for protecting and preserving natural assets such as wetlands, grasslands and forests.
“Our natural areas are disappearing and as they do, the value of those resources becomes more and more apparent,” said Holderness, who owns farmland near Quill Lake, Sask.
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“I travel throughout (the Prairies) … and I see shelterbelts and wetlands disappearing because farmers don’t want to go around them. Producers right now are out to maximize profits and unless we offer some monetary incentives, I think you’re going to see more and more wetlands being drained and more shelterbelts disappearing.”
Holderness is a pioneering member of Saskatchewan’s Alternative Land Use Services (ALUS) task force, a committee formed in 2006 to develop an environmental services pilot project for Saskatchewan landowners.
Under the ALUS concept, farmers and landowners receive an annual payment for retaining and protecting wetlands, riparian areas, woodlots and other ecologically sensitive areas.
A similar pilot project in Manitoba is now in its third and final year.
That project, which took place in the RM of Blanshard northeast of Brandon, paid landowners as much as $25 an acre to preserve ecologically sensitive areas.
In 2007, project administrators distributed cheques worth nearly $300,000 to 155 participating farmers.
Details of Blanshard’s ALUS project, including a description of payments, can be viewed on-line at www.kap.mb.ca/alus.htm.
In Saskatchewan, Holderness and others on the ALUS task force had hoped to secure government funding to launch a similar program in the Quill Lake area, a major flyway for migrating waterfowl.
But according to task force chair Glenn Blakley, the initiative has been set on the backburner, at least for the time being.
“The task force itself hasn’t really been dissolved,” Blakley said. “It’s just been set aside until there is some kind of appetite at the federal and provincial levels to look at it again.”
The task force had estimated the cost of a three-year pilot project at about $1.9 million.
In many parts of the world, paying farmers for the ecological services they provide is not a novel concept.
In the United States, for example, the conservation reserve program, established in 1985, pays farmers to take marginal farmland out of production.
In 2007, nearly 35 million acres were enrolled in the national program. The three million acres registered in North Dakota alone generated average producer payments of nearly $33 per acre.
Ian Wishart, president of Keystone Agricultural Producers in Manitoba, said paying producers for ecological services is gradually gaining acceptance in Canada.
However, widespread acceptance will take time.
After the ALUS pilot project winds up in Manitoba, Wishart said KAP will begin pushing for a permanent province-wide project to be phased in over several years.
The Blanshard pilot project is due to wrap up in April.
“We’re certainly not going to walk away from it, that’s for sure,” said Wishart.
“Since Day 1, the province has been generally very supportive of this approach. Putting money on the table is always a big issue with everybody but the approach we’re going to take with both the province and the federal government is that they are already spending millions of dollars on environmental programs … and our studies show that they’re getting more bang for their buck by investing in an ALUS type program.”
The Manitoba government is expected to release a formal evaluation of the pilot project in the next few months.
In Saskatchewan, Blakley has been watching to see if ALUS programs become a permanent part of Canada’s agricultural landscape. The success of Manitoba’s pilot program is creating optimism, as is a province-wide ALUS program launched in Prince Edward Island earlier this year.
Blakley said members of the Saskatchewan task force are still optimistic that the province will provide funding for a pilot project.
At the same time, he expressed frustration that Canadian farmers are still struggling to gain recognition for the ecological services they provide.
“It’s a touch frustrating because we believe these programs are beneficial for everybody,” he said.
“Our society has been asking for more environmental issues to be addressed and we think rural landowners have the ability to deliver on those issues. All they need are the proper financial incentives.”
Holderness agreed.
“When you look at the programs that are available to farmers in other countries, I think we are slightly behind the curve,” he said.
“We have this perception in Canada that we have so much wildlife and so much natural habitat that we don’t have to worry about managing it…. But as farms continue to get bigger and machinery continues to get larger and larger, we’re going to see subtle changes to the landscape.
“You’re probably not going to see massive changes in one year, but there will be subtle changes year after year and they will amass over time. Unless we offer some financial incentives to protect wetlands and other ecologically sensitive areas, our landscape will be changed forever.”
