FENELON FALLS, Ont. – Cattle producer Andrew Millar didn’t wait to be pushed by environmentalists to improve manure management practices on his eastern Ontario farm.
He didn’t need to be pushed.
“As far as environmental stewardship goes, I believe in it and understand my obligations and my responsibility,” the 56-year-old farmer said. “I want to be a good steward of the environment. I want to be a good neighbor.”
Millar has been trying to improve his environment in the six years since he moved back to the area where he was raised and bought the 80-acre farm where he keeps a 20-head breeding herd and rents 200 acres as pasture and crop land.
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Last year, he became one of the 18,000 Ontario farmers who have taken a farm environmental course and set out a plan to make his farm more environment friendly.
In Millar’s case, it has meant spending thousands of dollars to fence around marsh and water areas, to build a concrete base where his manure is stored and to cap abandoned open wells that could expose the local water supply to the poisoning effects of manure runoff.
“I recognize the wisdom of being environmentally respectful,” said the retired Ontario Provincial Police officer who farmed on the side for 30 years before returning to the land full time.
“I just think it is the right thing to do.”
In Ontario these days, not everyone sees farmers as responsible environmental stewards.
Since a fatal outbreak of contaminated water in the small community of Walkerton in early summer killed six and sickened scores more, many fingers have been pointed at farmers and poor manure management as the cause.
Urban fingers have been pointed, even though a public inquiry into the cause of the Walkerton tragedy has yet to start hearing witnesses.
The provincial government, in an attempt to shore up its own environmental image, will introduce legislation this autumn to impose tougher manure management rules on farms.
“We must address public concerns regarding this issue,” Ontario agriculture minister Ernie Hardeman told the summer meeting of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association in Midland, Ont., in mid-August.
While he said a “vast majority” of farmers are environmentally responsible, the public is looking for more assurance.
Meanwhile, the farm lobby has been scrambling to defend itself, welcoming the Ontario government’s legislation.
“We are absolutely in favor of nutrition management regulations,” Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Jack Wilkinson said in an interview in Toronto. “That is why we are co-operating with the government on this and want to see it happen quickly. But we also are nervous that the legislation may be too broad and may target farm practices more generally. We have to keep it focused.”
He said the farm lobby must work hard to keep the debate in perspective so the farm role in environmental degradation is not exaggerated or isolated.
In an August interview in his Toronto office, Hardeman said the farm regulation legislation to be tabled this autumn has been in the works for some time.
However, he said the uproar over Walkerton and E. coli deaths, as well as the attention it has brought to intensive livestock farming, have made the public and farmers more receptive.
“It is more on people’s minds,” he said. “Farming is changing and we have to make sure the rules are changing with the times.”
He said the legislation will set standards for manure handling that recognize larger operations need more land base and precise controls to accommodate the larger amounts of manure produced.
“And while the vast majority of farmers are responsible, we need penalties and sanctions to deal with those who are not.”
It is ironic that Ontario is at the centre of the debate over farm practices since for a decade, the province has operated one of the most advanced farm environmental programs on the continent.
Farmers are offered a chance to take in a one-day seminar, then to draw up a plan of their farm highlighting environmental problems and how they plan to fix them.
Up to $1,500 is made available by the program to help finance improvements.
Millar said it is frustrating that producers are not always given public credit for the environmental stewardship they practise and the improvements they have made.
“I know there is public concern out there, but I do not know one farmer who willfully pollutes,” he said. “I’m sure it happens but remember, farmers are the first ones to drink the water on their farms.”
