A while ago, Roy Greer ran over a deer antler.
It punctured a tire and caused an unplanned suspension of field operations on his farm.
“It was a small tire, but it was $50 and three hours,” said Greer.
He didn’t mind dealing with this situation, but it made him think about the cost for farmers of protecting the environment.
“We’ve been doing this for quite a while for nothing,” he said in an interview during the Association of Manitoba Municipalities convention.
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“We don’t want to see any more land drained, or native prairie plowed up, or trees cut down, but it’s crucial that we get incentives so it doesn’t happen. Regulations aren’t the right way to go.”
Greer supports the Alternative Land Use Services (ALUS) program, which is being tested in his municipality. It’s an approach developed by Keystone Agricultural Producers and Delta Waterfowl that pays farmers small amounts of money for preserving wetlands and other wild areas of their farmland.
During a bearpit session with Manitoba cabinet ministers, Greer called on the government to embrace ALUS, make it permanent and spread it across the province.
Two cabinet ministers offered him reassurance that comforted him.
“We don’t want to put in jeopardy livelihoods in the agricultural sector to restore and reclaim wetlands,” said Christine Melnick, Manitoba’s minister of water stewardship.
“The incentive so far (in our society) has been to drain wetlands, and that’s for the economic benefit rather than the environmental benefit. Now we have to kind of turn around and think (about the consequences).”
In the recent throne speech that opened the latest session of the Manitoba legislature, a new program to reverse the loss of wetlands was announced.
Agriculture minister Rosann Wow-chuk said the provincial government is closely watching the ALUS experiment in Greer’s municipality of Blanchard to see whether it can be expanded.
“When the pilot program is complete, then we will look at whether this is the model we want to use or whether there is another model we want to use,” said Wowchuk.
She believes federal money channeled through the province could help fund an incentive-based program.
Greer said farmers in his area have eagerly joined ALUS, even farmers who usually shun involvement in any program.
He thinks it is time for the province to support the program.
“We farmers provide this service to society because we own the land.
“A lot of it helps the wildlife and that helps everyone.”
