Technology, good soil practices and a research continuum are driving sustainable farming in Western Canda.
Farmers and industry leaders from Alberta and Saskatchewan shared their thoughts and experiences on a panel on the importance of innovation for agricultural resilience in the face of changing climates at the International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research held at the beginning of July.
Rob Stone, who farms about 9,500 acres of canola, wheat and lentils and is experimenting with chickpeas at his farm near Davidson, Sask., spoke as part of the panel.
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“Saskatchewan is like the heartland of innovation when it comes down to soil practices, and it’s driven by farmers. Think of all the tools over the last 50 or 100 years that have been manufactured and made of a need to reduce tillage, to increase crop production,” he said.
He began direct seeding in the mid ’90s. Before that, he grew wheat and fallowed in a rotation.
“We had tree rows all over the place to keep soil from blowing away. We have always employed practices with soil in mind,” he said.
Stone said when crop protection products started to come down in price, he realized this was the next step in being a more responsible farmer, conserving moisture and soil.
A lot of farmers started cobbling together their own equipment and their airseeders to conserve moisture and soil, he said. Equipment manufacturers followed suit and began making equipment to serve farmers’ needs.
“It’s the innovation that happens in Saskatchewan and western Canada that is just amazing to me; how you take a need and are able to translate it into equipment that works so quickly and now we’re into the next frontier,” he said.
Paul Thiel, formerly of Bayer Crop Science research and development, is currently the New Thought Leader in Smart Agriculture with Olds College. He chairs a panel of growers who provide feedback to the college.
Thiel said when a new idea is brought to the farm, there’s often a breadth of ideas that become part of it.
He said innovations contribute to massive changes in agriculture. For example, no till seeding led to cooler and moister conditions at seeding levels.
“We had to adapt the whole breeding process to account for how things are changing on the farm,” he said.
Agriculture has evolved to include a new world of remote sensing and data collection, and that needs to be available and offer practical use for farmers, he said. Thiel said agriculture functions in a regulatory environment, but he gets frustrated with the pace of science outgrowing the ability of government to keep up.
“This is a real problem for growers, because growers see opportunities that they simply cannot realize,” he said.
Tracy Broughton, executive director of SaskOilseeds said when Polish canola was introduced to the Prairies, farmers were really interested in figuring out how to grow it over broad acres, and they got together and shared their stories.
As a result of farmer discussions with government, actual policy decisions led to the development of a crop levy for pulse crops, so farmer dollars were invested into creating new varieties.
Broughton said all the crop groups in Saskatchewan work closely together, and work for farmers. The crop organizations are all trying to invest in practical research to advance farming practices.
Shawna Mathieson, executive director with Prairie Oat Growers Association, said she and her husband have been doing no till for over 30 years, and revenue was the key factor there. However, using no till has resulted in big changes on their farm. They farm over 2,600 acres near Watson, Sask. She said that when she and her husband make decisions on the farm, economic sustainability comes first.
“No till lets you farm a little bit more because you’re doing fewer passes, so you have less need for hiring people,” she said.
Staffing requirements go down, which is good in Saskatchewan, where there is a huge labour shortage.
Western Canada is leading the world in low emission, sustainable oat and barley production, said Mathieson.
Technological advances have had a huge impact on farming.
Stone said GMOs and the development of herbicide tolerant canola in the 1990s were life changing for the rotation on the farm at Davidson. When Roundup Ready canola was developed, it opened a diverse crop rotation and more economic opportunities for farmers.
Stone said hybrid systems and plant genetic improvements have been a gamechanger for farmers.
“We’ve benefitted by having products now that will yield maybe double what we would have expected from our canola crop in the late 1990s,” he said.
Stone said he supports technology, but there needs to be a reason for it, as well as an economic benefit for the farmer.
“Technology is great but also being able to evaluate and implement it responsibly and on your own terms, is really important as well,” he said.
Thiel spoke about the growing disconnect between food producers and consumers.
Broughton said SaskOilseeds invests heavily in consumer education and outreach to consumers.
“We are trying, as farm groups, to tell our good story. When we were talking enough earlier this morning, we were realizing that we don’t tell our good news story that often, and how much of a powerhouse Saskatchewan has been in terms of revolutionizing the seeding equipment industry,” she said.
Broughton said Saskatchewan has a network like the value chain or supply chain.
“We’re a small enough province that we have relationships between farmers and governments, farmers and academics, and we have a network of sites where there are demonstration sites in several different regions of the province, and each of those sites have researchers who are working on projects like basic research and applied research, and then that commercialization step,” she said. Broughton said Saskatchewan has a small enough population that it can work through the entire research continuum.
Farmers are largely involved on the boards of agricultural program sites, and farm groups have created a program called on-farm trials, which are directed by farmers involved in terms of what protocols or what products or practices are going to be executed on a farm scale research trial, she said. Jill McDonald, executive director of SaskBarley, also participated in the panel.
