Aldridge is a rural extension specialist serving the municipal districts of Clear Hills, Fairview and Peace in Alberta.
It’s time to think of Christmas wishes and 2006. Here’s a rural extension worker’s wish list for Peace country environmentally sustainable agriculture.
Dear Santa: Consider this list as sort of a top 10 countdown. Wish number 10 is for a complete compendium of books on environmentally sustainable agricultural practices for all Peace Country farmers and ranchers.
Number nine and eight, respectively, are for a healthy riparian area around every water body in the Peace and a buffer zone beyond that.
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Wish number seven is for everyone to have all the necessary technologies needed for precision farming and site-specific management.
That way, when integrating their crop management practices, they can make best use of wish number six. That’s for readily available low-cost supplies of nutrients, whether chemical fertilizer or livestock manure resources, for everyone’s use at reasonable rates for the 2006 crop.
Running out of wishes, I’ll paint them with a broader brush from here on, starting with wish number five. This is for approval of funding, through the Canada Alberta Farm Stewardship Program, for projects contributing to wishes nine through six to come true, and more.
Wish four is a completed Environmental Farm Plan for every agricultural producer so they can be potentially eligible to make wish number five come true. Not to mention the peace of mind they’ll get from the self-assessment of their place and practices through an EFP.
Wishes three and two require Santa to accept my word that farmers and ranchers in the Peace were nice as opposed to naughty in 2005.
Well, leastwise when it comes to being good stewards of the land and environment. This, in my humble opinion, should mitigate any other naughtiness they may have got up to in 2005.
They’re trying their darnedest to excel at agro-environmentalism despite the ever present constraints of limited time and money. Therefore, number three is for more time for trying and wish two for less squeezing of a cost-price nature.
Finally Santa, it comes down to this, my number one wish. Please accept it as a single wish, being as it fits all in one sentence. Also, if it helps you out with making it so, forget the other nine. Just concentrate on making this one come true for every reader, their friends and family included.
My number one wish is for a joyous holiday season and a safe, happy, healthy, prosperous New Year with peace not just in the Peace country, but on Earth as well.
