DAYSLAND, Alta. – British novelist Richard Llewellyn wrote How Green Was My Valley but Alberta farmers may soon answer the question, how green is my farm?
With Alberta under increasing worldwide scrutiny for its carbon emissions from the energy industry, Alberta farmers could prove they’re part of the green solution, not the problem.
Janette McDonald, program manager with the Agriculture Research and Extension Council of Alberta, wants to help farmers prove agriculture is a green technology.
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“We want to draw attention to agriculture efficiency,” McDonald told farmers at a tractor technology workshop.
Over the next year, the research group will gather information and establish baseline data on the energy efficiency of direct and conventional seeding systems.
They also hope to develop a fuel use calculator to help farmers understand how much fuel is used for each agricultural operation.
McDonald said there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that direct seeding technology uses less fuel and is more energy efficient, but they need to figure out how to measure it.
“We want to draw conclusions on fuel efficiency,” she said.
Farmers will get a clearer picture of how much it costs to seed, spray or harvest each crop.
“We believe there are opportunities in agriculture that can be created with fuel and energy efficiency.
“We need to start collecting data that is already out there and extract the data and fill in the gaps in research.”
It’s estimated a switch from conventional to reduced tillage in the United States would save 3.9 gallons per acre. If the 62.4 million acres still conventionally tilled switched to reduced tillage practices, it would save 243 million gallons of fuel per year.
More research is needed on energy efficiency and fuel consumption on Canadian farms, she said.
“We need some more of that kind of data. We need to try to pull research together to learn more.”
McDonald said few farmers know how much fuel is used in each field or crop.
“When it comes to fuel use, they don’t know.”
McDonald hopes to work with about 20 farmers this year and learn where more work is needed to help farmers become more fuel efficient.
“We’re really trying to draw attention to your operations and what investment you need to farm better.”
Lawrence Papworth, a project engineer with AG Technology Centre in Lethbridge, said the research group hopes to work with farmers to improve fuel use on the farm.
It’s estimated 50 percent of the energy used on a farm is diesel fuel. By building a fuel assessment calculator, grain farmers will be able to take advantage of money in the Growing Forward programs directed to farmers for improved energy efficiency.
“It’s a tool to measure how much fuel was used to produce a crop. It would generally be a good news story,” he said.
Using information from the Neb-raska Tractor Test laboratory put into a spreadsheet and a special load cell unit hooked between the tractor and implement, the centre hopes to learn how efficient each tractor is working.
Data from the test lab will tell them how efficient their tractors should be and the information from the load cell will tell them how fuel efficient their tractors really are.
“The producer would get a mini assessment of the operation in the field and ideally how much fuel should have been used and how much was actually used.
“Our hope is along this process we can help producers make better use of energy that they use,” he said.
