The Prairie Shelterbelt Program is ending, but research and technology development will continue at the federal Agroforestry Development Centre in Indian Head, Sask.
Agriculture Canada has reached a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agroforestry Centre in Lincoln, Nebraska.
The agreement, announced just days after Ottawa confirmed that production and distribution of trees from the 111-year-old centre would stop in 2013, is in effect until June 6, 2016.
Bruce Wight, the national forester with the USDA’s natural resources conservation service, said information shared by the two centres will be transferred to farmers and put into practice in both countries.
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Ironically, a joint workshop planned for July at the International Peace Gardens in Manitoba will focus on the need to rejuvenate existing shelterbelts. Western Canadian farmers who typically relied on free trees provided by the shelterbelt program for such projects won’t be able to do so after next year.
Wight said programs available to American farmers pay 75 percent of the cost of such trees.
The MOU will also include the exchange of information about climate change adaptation and mitigation.
