Sustainable award; Garden award; Alternative farming award
Sustainable award
Keystone Agricultural Producers and Delta Waterfowl have received an award from the Manitoba Round Table for Sustainable Development.
The groups received the Manitoba Excellence in Sustainability Award for an Alternative Land Use Service (ALUS) pilot project in the Rural Municipality of Blanshard.
The Blanshard ALUS pilot project pays farmers and landowners for providing environmental services such as wetland conservation and protection of natural grasslands.
The made-in-Manitoba program was the first of its kind in Canada. Similar pilot projects have since been introduced in Prince Edward Island and Ontario’s Norfolk County.
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Garden award
Sara Williams of Saskatoon is the latest recipient of the Prairie Garden Award for Excellence.
The award recognizes an individual or group that has made a significant contribution to advancing and promoting horticulture on the northern Great Plains.
Williams grew her first garden as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania, where she taught after completing a degree in English and history from the University of Michigan in 1963.
After moving to Saskatoon, she became interested in horticulture and earned a bachelor of science in agriculture degree with great distinction in 1987.
She later completed a master of science degree in agricultural extension and was appointed the horticulture extension specialist with the extension division at the University of Saskatchewan.
In that role, Williams has developed a variety of programs for Saskatchewan gardeners.
The Prairie Garden Award for Excellence is sponsored by The Prairie Garden, an annual journal.
For more information, visit www.theprairiegarden.ca.
Alternative farming award
Scientists who have worked toward development of alternative cropping systems for Western Canada have won a national government department award.
The group of 24 scientists won the Agriculture Canada 2008 Gold Harvest award for designing and implementing a project to evaluate the long-term sustainability of nine different crop production systems designed to reduce use of farm chemicals.
The alternative systems combine three levels of farm inputs with high, reduced or organic levels of fertilizers, pesticides and fuels, with three types of cropping including fallow-based cropping; diversified cropping using annual grain; and perennial-based cropping using annuals grain and perennial forages.
The alternative cropping system team consists of Darwin Leach and Sukhdev Malhi of the Melfort, Sask., research farm; Ken Bassendowski, Susan Boyetchko, Murray Braun, Bruce Gossen, Darrell Hahn, Julia Leeson, Reynald Lemke, Cathy Manchur, Owen Olfert, Gordon Thomas and Ross Weiss of the Saskatoon research centre; Stewart Brandt, Don Gerein, Eric Johnson, Terri Sittler and Larry Sproule of the Scott research farm; Prakash Basnyak, Myriam Fernandez, Chantel Hamel, Keith Hanson and Bob Zentner of the Swift Current research centre; and Alan Moulin of the Brandon research centre.
