Analysts at winter crop production meetings are projecting an increase in wheat, canola and special crops acreage, which raises the question, where will it all come from?
The unfortunate answer may be pasture and hay land, says Blair McClinton, manager of the Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association.
According to the 2006 Census of Agriculture, there were 12.1 million acres of tame and seeded pasture on the Prairies and another 9.5 million acres of alfalfa and alfalfa mixtures.
McClinton worries high grain prices and low cattle prices may entice producers to convert some of that ecologically valuable land back into crop production.
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“I see this as something that is probably going to happen,” he said.
A similar trend occurred with the run-up in grain prices in the 1970s.
McClinton said the conversion will lead to further soil degradation, loss of wildlife habitat and other ecological setbacks.
He doesn’t think government policy makers have thought about the issue, especially in Saskatchewan where there appears to be continuing attempts to increase the livestock herd and perennial forage land.
“That (policy approach) may not fit very well if high commodity prices are the new paradigm,” McClinton said.
Politicians need to come to grips with the new reality and devise an alternative plan to protect natural areas and encourage perennial forages.
“Those are questions that people need to think about and I don’t know if that’s really happening yet,” he said.
However, McClinton doesn’t expect an acceleration in the already rapid decline in summerfallow acreage.
In 2007, farmers idled 7.7 million acres of land, the lowest level of summerfallow since 1920. Summerfallow has been on a steady and precipitous decline since 1970, when there were 36.9 million acres.
McClinton expects the downward trend to continue in 2008, but he doesn’t anticipate massive tracts of land coming back into production because much of the summerfallow is in the brown and dark brown soil zones where farmers have concerns about dry conditions.
“While they may be tempted, I think that’s one of the things that holds them back.”
He would like to see less summerfallow, calling it one of the worst environmental practices farmers have ever employed. It has contributed to wind and water erosion that in extreme cases has led to the disappearance of more than 50 percent of the organic matter in some prairie soil over the last 100 years.
However, McClinton said he recognized a certain segment of the farm population will always carry on with the practice and there will always be floods and drought that force farmers to summerfallow their land.
