With increasing interest in renewable energy and as vast solar arrays are installed, farmers are paid considerable lease money for the use of their land, municipalities get a much enhanced tax base, and as livestock and crops are produced under what can be hundreds and sometimes thousands of acres of solar panels, it provides another revenue stream for the farm. And these solar farms can produce renewable energy that can help power aspects of the provincial economy such as the relatively new industry — AI data centres. And with permanent forage production the operations helps to sequester carbon as well — many wins on the agrivoltaics score sheet.

“I believe that agrivoltaics is a diversification opportunity that could be the saviour of many family farms in Canada,” says Patrick Gossage, president and board chair of Agrivoltaics Canada. That is an organization that represents all players involved in a relatively new niche area of farming.

What is agrivoltaics? Agri, refers to agriculture and voltaics (pronounced as vol-tay-icks) refers to producing energy. It is the system of producing crops and livestock under an array of solar panels.

Producing power from solar panels first appeared in Canada on a limited basis during the energy crisis of the 1970s. Fast forward a few decades, and as the cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems for electricity generation declined and interest in renewable energy increased, over the past 10 to 15 years there has been greater interest in producing power through solar energy.

But as these solar projects have been proposed on sites ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand acres, there was also criticism they were often taking valuable farmland out of production. “Solar energy is not the boogeyman,” says Gossage. “And that’s the message we want to get across to all levels. Properly managed, these solar power projects can actually enhance and increase agricultural production and become diversification projects that can save family farms.”

Gossage pointed to a research project, organized by Agrivoltaics Canada on an Ontario farm of only 150 acres (fairly typical size in Ontario) that was at risk of being sold. While the “agricultural component” of most agrivoltaics projects involves livestock or honey bees for honey production, for this project the design and layout of the solar array was adjusted to create more room between the rows of solar panels. The plan is for the farm to use its existing equipment to seed and harvest soybeans and grain between the solar panel rows.

“This producer will be earning money from the lease of his land to the solar developer,” says Gossage. “And they’ll also be able to produce a crop on the farm as well. The lease itself will provide four times the return per acre than most commodities and the farmer will still be able to produce a crop.”

Gossage notes while the Ontario provincial government has ruled that solar power projects cannot be developed on prime agricultural land, that does not rule out the value of including agrivoltaics in projects to improve returns to each farm.

While most provinces have some solar power projects, Ontario and Alberta are really the major players in the solar power generation in the country. One report published in 2024, showed there were nearly 100 large commercial solar projects in Canada ranging from 150 to 3,400 acres in size. These were either operational or in development. Alberta had about 54 projects, Ontario about 37 projects with one or two each in Saskatchewan, B.C. and Prince Edward Island. For those projects where acres were cited, a partial list covered well in excess of 200,000 acres.

In Alberta, Jason Bradley, a long-time manager of a 350 head cow-calf operation near Sundre and former farm manager at Olds College is now CEO of a multi-partnered consulting company — Sun Cycle Farms — providing a range of services to the solar energy industry.

He is a strong proponent of regenerative agriculture and extends that philosophy to regenerative agrivoltaics.

“Alberta has a number of solar power projects producing power and several more in the development stage,” says Bradley. “With agrivoltaics there is a tremendous opportunity for farmers to be involved, diversify their operations and still keep agricultural land productive.”

He notes that renewable energy companies will pay at least $700 per acre per year just to lease the land for solar projects. If the producer is also interested in providing vegetation control under and between solar arrays that can be worth another $200 or more per acre. And on top of that the farmer has opportunity to raise different classes of livestock on the solar farm project to further enhance the revenue stream.

As of 2024, Alberta mandated all solar power projects over 10 megawatts (about 60 acres) must have a “farm first” plan for projects developed on Class 1 and 2 agricultural land. That means the project must include a viable agrivoltaic component. Sun Cycle Farms can provide a range of services. They work with companies to design the solar array installation, so it is well suited to accommodate farming activity. They will work with the company or farmers to provide and manage the agrivoltaic component itself. And when possible they welcome the opportunity to operate the solar plant as well as the agrivoltaic component.

“It is critical that the power plant and agrivoltaics be in collaboration with each other,” says Bradley. “Depending on the activity, the angle of the solar panels may need to be adjusted from angled, to table top, to cathedral (upright position) to accommodate grazing livestock or field operations with equipment. It helps if we can be in control of both to be able to manage timing as needed.

“Farming with agrivoltaics requires a paradigm shift in thinking for producers. With the solar installation in place, the agriculture component has to be managed within a high voltage, industrial power plant, in the midst of screw piles, cables and transformers. It is a different environment.”

Bradley is a strong advocate that solar power projects should be installed on prime agricultural land, providing farmers the best opportunity to optimize returns through agrivoltaics.

While sheep are commonly used to provide vegetation control, Bradley says projects can also include pigs, or poultry, as well as crops such as fruit and vegetable production. He also noted a research project underway involving a solar power installation owned by the town of Cardston in southern Alberta where cattle are being grazed among the solar panels. Olds College is actively involved in researching agrivoltaic options and practices.

Eric Steeves, part of the family owned Yetwood Farms near Lomond in southern Alberta is part of the Travers Solar Project — the largest solar power development in Canada. Part of their grain farm along with several other nearby family farms have leased a total of 3,400 acres to a development that includes more than 1.3 million solar panels.

Steeves was proactive in the early planning stages and diversified their farming operation to include sheep as the agrivoltaic component of the project. They currently pasture about 2,000 ewes on the solar power site and plan to ramp that up to 8,000 head over the next few years.

“This Travers project has proven to be an excellent diversification for our farm and for several other farms involved in the project,” says Steeves. He says those dryland acres included in the solar project are now earning $900 per acre or more per year just in lease payments and vegetation management fees and that doesn’t include the returns from lambs produced as the agrivoltaics component.

He noted that the County of Vulcan is also reaping the benefits. The 23 quarter sections covered by the Travers Solar Project would have generated about $10,000 in tax revenue for the county strictly as cropland, but now the solar project on that land is providing the country with $3.5 to $4 million per year in tax revenue.

“And as the province is interested in attracting new developments such AI data centres which require a great deal power, these solar energy projects could provide a renewable energy source for those type of industries,” says Steeves.

“Alberta had the foresight more than 100 years ago to develop irrigation for farming in southern Alberta and look at the contribution it is making to the agriculture industry today. We need to dream big in this province. These solar power projects provide a great deal of opportunity to farmers, to communities, and to the provincial economy while keeping agricultural land in production. We need to dream big and encourage more of these projects.”

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It certainly wasn’t an overnight process, and it involved a steep learning curve, but Steeves says being involved in Canada’s largest renewable energy, solar power generation project has been a game changer not only for his family’s Yetwood Farms, but for several other family farms in the Lomond area, about an hour north of Lethbridge.

The system of grazing sheep (or really any agricultural activity) under arrays of solar panels is known as agrivoltaics. For most that is not a household term. Agri of course relates to agriculture and voltaic (pronounced vol-tay-ick) refers to some process that generates electricity. You put them together and the term refers producing an agricultural commodity under these solar fields. Agrivoltaics is a relatively new concept to Canada, but has been used with solar power generating projects in the United States and other parts of the world for many years.

The Steeves family were just regular grain farmers, cropping about 6,000 mostly dryland acres of grains and oilseeds when they were approached in 2017 by Calgary based Greengate Power Corporation asking if they would make land available for a solar power project.

“I thought the first phone call was a joke,” says Steeves. “Some sort of scam as they were talking about a large solar project. There was a second call and I said if this is legitimate why don’t you come here and have a meeting with the people to properly explain the project.” So they did. Starting in July 2017, the company met with several farm families in Lomond during a number of meetings, which resulted in contracts being signed in October 2017.

That was the beginning of the Travers Solar Project “a trail blazer among solar power projects in Canada,” says Steeves. The project itself, today the largest solar project in Canada, involved installation of 1.3 million solar panels in arrays covering about 3,400 acres of farmland. The Steeves family has about nine quarters or 1,440 acres being leased to the project, while several nearby farm families leased another 14 quarters or 2,240 acres to Greengate.

It took about two years for the company to obtain all necessary permits. Construction started in 2020 and the project was completed and producing power by late 2022. The $700 million project is designed to generate 465 megawatts of electricity which in general terms is enough to power more than 150,000 homes.

So how did the Travers Solar Project benefit Yetwood Farms and the other producers who leased their land to the project? First of all are the lease payments from the energy company. Depending on the project, lease rates can range from $700 to $1,200 per acre per year. On top of that if the landowners are contracted to look after vegetation control — keep the grass and weeds cut under the panels — that can be worth another $200 to $400 per acre per year.

“When we looked at the project, here we are farming in the Palliser Triangle — the brown and dark brown soil zone — and on average our net return from crop production would be around $70 per acre,” says Steeves. “That’s an average. Some years better and during several years of drought conditions we could collect crop insurance which was less. Whereas on those acres leased to the solar project a person can potentially earn from $900 to $1,600 per acre just to have the project there. We saw getting involved with the solar project as an excellent opportunity to diversify the farm. With mostly dryland crop production and years of drought, this project has perhaps saved our farming operation, along with other family farms in the area.”

But, don’t these solar projects take good farmland out of production? Not at all. That’s were agrivoltaics kick into gear. When these large solar projects were first introduced in Alberta, for example, the asset owners wanted the bare ground underneath the solar arrays covered with forages. But it was soon realized that the real risk to these solar panel arrays wasn’t hail, although that can be concern, but potential for grass fires that could wipe out the whole operation. Hence the need for vegetation control.

There could be mechanical means for removing the forages, but with spacing of 21 feet between solar arrays and only about four feet of clearance under the panels when they are in the table top position, mowing and perhaps even baling the forage for removal would require specialized equipment.

For vegetation control in other solar projects around the world, grazing livestock — namely sheep — under and around these solar panels was a common practice.

“My dad had raised pigs at one time and we did run some cows at different times years ago, but I had zero experience with sheep,” says Steeves.

In preparation for the providing vegetation control for the solar project under construction, Steeves bought 50 sheep in 2020. He wanted to get some idea of what it was like to manage sheep.

“I soon realized that sheep are a lot different than cattle and for a project this size I was going to need some expert help with management,” he says. Steeves did some research, located an expert on sheep, a professor specializing in small ruminant livestock, who was managing a ranch raising sheep and goats connected with the University of Mexico, in Mexico City. He was interested in working on the Yetwood Farms project. In late 2023 he moved to Alberta and has been managing the flock.

Today, Yetwood Farms, which is managing the sheep and vegetation control for the entire Travers Solar Project, is running 2,000 head of breeding females. The plan is to increase that to 3,500 ewes over the next year and within five years grow the flock to about 8,000 head. They have built lambing facilities as well as feedlot for finishing lambs. The plan is to manage the flock so it is producing lambs on a year-round basis. Lambs are finished to an average of 130 pounds and marketed through the Westpine Meats processing plant at Innsifail in south central Alberta.

Steeves says when the flock is fully stocked, it has potential to produce about 13,600 lambs per year, with a total carcass weight of about 850,000 pounds of meat. If the price averages about $5 per pound that meat has a total value of $4.25 million. Along with land lease rates to farmers, agrivoltaics provides further return to producers through sale of agricultural commodities such as lamb.

Interestingly, the wool from the sheep has no value as a fibre. As sheep are shorn annually all wool, which is high in nitrogen, is mixed with manure and composted, with the compost applied to the Yetwood Farms annual crop acres. The farm hires contract shearers to shear the flock. Shearers are paid about $6 per head. A shearer with proper technique can shear up to 30 sheep per hour.

While sheep is a very common commodity for agrivoltaics, he says there are many options. There are a number of research projects across Canada, including Olds College, looking at the potential to produce poultry, hogs, beef cattle, hay and even annual crops under properly designed solar projects.

The sheep flock at Yetwood Farms is managed in an intensive rotational grazing system. The ground beneath the solar panels has been seeded to a forage blend. Right now the flock is divided, with 1,000 head of sheep grazing on about 60 acres and moved weekly. As numbers increase there will be multiple flocks moving through the field of solar panels. With rotational, mob grazing, they are able to run two to two and a half sheep per acre for the grazing season. With more extensive grazing management in the early days, carrying capacity was in the 0.8 to one sheep per acre range.

Steeves says the farm did invest in a low-profile Avant 860i loader which can travel between the arrays. It can be outfitted with a boomless sprayer to apply herbicide. For seeding they also have a small custom built air seeder that works between the solar arrays.

“If we have bare ground the air seeder is probably the best way to get grass established,” says Steeves. “But in areas were we want to renew or add forage species we found the best approach is to hire a drone applicator, apply the seed by air, then turn the sheep on to that area to graze. The hoof action of the sheep works the seed into the soil.”

Shade from the solar panels provides the sheep shelter from the sun and also creates a micro-climatic zone under the arrays, that suits forage production.

As they tried to establish forages during dry years in some areas the kochia took over before the grass. Some areas of the pasture areas were at one time 85 per cent kochia and 15 per cent grass. But through grazing management and seeding where necessary those percentages have been reversed. “We do have a couple areas of foxtail that we will address with herbicide, but for the most part forage production is trending in the right direction,” he says.

Steeves says the agrivoltaics project has been an intense learning experience. “When we started nine years ago, it really was the wild, wild west,” he says. “There were no guidelines, or regulations. We had to learn this system from scratch and we are still learning. There were a number of pain points as we went along, but the fact is that the benefits far outweigh any pain we experienced. It is a diversification opportunity that could benefit many farms.”

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A handful of provincial conservation groups have voiced their concerns over a proposal to convert more than 3,000 acres of municipally held native grasslands into irrigated cultivated land to grow crops.

In a joint news release, the Alberta chapter of the Wildlife Society, the Alberta Wilderness Association, the southern Alberta chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Nature Alberta and the Southern Alberta Group for the Environment asks that six sections of land located near Scope Reservoir east of Vauxhall, Alta., be kept in its current form.

The land is currently leased to the Vauxhall Stock Grazing Association, but that group has been informed its lease will not be renewed in 2026.

According to a Calgary Herald article, Cliff Wallis, a board member with the Alberta Wilderness Association, recently visited the site and saw species that included the chestnut-collared longspur, which Birds Canada says has declined by 95 per cent, as well as barn swallows and pronghorn.

Wallis was on a hand for the first of a series of public meetings by the Oldman Lease Holders Association to address leaseholders’ concerns over a borrowing bylaw proposed by the municipal district.

The bylaw would provide as much as $6 million to change the land from grazing to irrigated cropland land in partnership with the Bow River Irrigation District.

A string of public meetings in Vauxhall, Enchant, Hays, Grassy Lake and Taber hope to collect upward of 800 signatures from local residents on a petition that would block third and final reading of the borrowing bylaw, opting for a public vote if the project should commence.

“Native grasslands are some of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet. Sure, there’s a couple of well sites on the roads, but it’s native grasslands, it’s species at risk and it’s in good shape,” said Wallis at the OLHA meeting in Vauxhall on Sept. 9.

“We’ve been looking after it, we’re quite happy. We have a good relationship, both with farmers and with ranchers. I sat on the minister’s committee for the Water Act in 1995 and we made sure that people’s water rights were protected. We understand both sides of this, but when you have a disappearing resource with that, it’s our duty to look after it, trying to protect them. We also see it as an economic issue.…

“We funded the things in the campaigns and counties that we can rely on longevity here, so we need that mix, so don’t forget about that. It is an economic issue. It is a conservation issue. I was appointed to the Order of Canada for my work on nature conservation in 2023, so I try to find the solutions here. There are groups that have money, (maybe) turn it back to the province and maybe there’s some payments back to the county, or in Canada, in some kind of conservation. Let’s talk about it. There is a stewardship here that we appreciate, and I think it should be rewarded, not punished.”

The proposed project is a 3,100-acre carve-out from the 69,280 acres of municipally owned and 160,800 acres of crown-owned lands that are currently accessible for ranching and grazing operations within the municipality, according to the MD of Taber website.

The changes to expiring grazing and cultivated leases in the area have been a contentious issue for months, with delegations from both sides expressing their viewpoints during council meetings and public information sessions.

The proposed project involves only a small portion of native grasslands in the MD, but the Vauxhall Stock Grazing Association and local ranchers say they are worried about the precedent it could set.

They say that under the agreement with the BRID, a land sale can be facilitated with a year’s notice or grant a lease to a third party for an alternate use with 30-days written notice.

Ranchers are worried it could theoretically swing the balance over to high-value irrigated crop production and away from land stewardship of native grasslands if future councils were so inclined.

“More or less, we are just trying to make people aware of the situation,” Daryl Johnson, vice -resident of the Vauxhall Stock Grazing Association, said in an interview.

“So now the MD is in this situation where they have all this land, and there’s of course, all these different pressures on them.”

He said council has told the association it has received inquiries about all of the native prairie grasslands in the MD that are used for grazing.

“We’re just hoping to make things work for everybody, of course. But at the end of the day, there needs to be a fair deal, and there needs to be the recognition of those leaseholder rights that have been there for as long as these lands have been (tax-recovery) seized, really. The changes to these leases have massive impacts.”

The post Conservation groups enter grazing lease debate appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Liisa Jeffrey, executive director of Peace Country Beef and Forage Association (PCBFA), said the funding offered by the RSP is a good fit for her organization.

“We’re a forage-based research association and all of the research and everything that we are doing very much ties in with the goals of that program,” said Jeffrey.

This year, grant recipients for the 2024-2025 program include academic institutions, Indigenous organizations, non-profits and grazing associations. The RSP is funded by a portion of rental fees collected from grazing disposition holders on Crown land. The money is then reinvested into projects supporting responsible stewardship across Alberta’s rangelands.

“That’s money coming from ranchers set aside to benefit ranchers. It’s a good concept that the government has come up with,” said Lindsye Murfin, general manager of the Western Stock Growers Association.

The projects for this year include education and community outreach, adaptive grazing practices, conservation strategies, grassland bird conservation and bee biodiversity surveys.

Murfin said they submitted their application for the program in fall 2024, and funding was approved in March 2025.

The WSGA’s project is looking to develop a market for ecosystem services that would work best for ranchers.

“We have an index that we developed that measures ecosystem health, and you could take that, apply it to a parcel of land, get the score and then use the score in the marketplace,” she said.

“You could contract your management of that parcel to either keep your high score or improve it,” she said.

“Our project is fine tuning that index. We’re doing a market analysis and a cross jurisdictional scan of what metrics and measurables are already being used,” she said.

Next summer, the WSGA will be field testing the new index on ranches of stock grower members to make sure it works. WSGA is working with Solstice Environmental Management, and Green Analytics, both of which are based in Edmonton. These companies have started doing a scan of all market analysis in North America and Australia.

Field testing for the project will take place on 50,000 acres in Alberta.

Jeffrey said PCBFA has three projects funded by the RSP.

The projects include a silvopasture project, a liming project, and a perennials project.

“All three of them are three-year projects that started in 2024, so they’re in their second field season right now,” said Jeffrey.

The silvopasture project is a producer-led study that evaluates the potential benefits of grazing forest systems versus open pasture.

“That kind of intentional combination of trees, forage and livestock managed as a single integrated practice is what’s called a silvopastural system, and they have potential to provide a number of benefits to livestock and to the plant community,” she said.

Some of the benefits include increasing soil fertility and conservation, improving wildlife habitat and the quality of forage, and diversifying income. There are also some ecosystems benefits like atmospheric carbon sequestration and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions.

“On top of that, trees and shrubs in these systems provide shade for animals, so that’s going to improve thermal comfort, which then improves the ability of animals to consume and digest adequate forage biomass, especially in hot weather conditions,” said Jeffrey. This research is being conducted on a ranch in High Prairie, in Big Lakes County.

The second project is a liming project, which is being run as a field study on a producer’s farm in Sexsmith. Adding lime to forages can increase soil pH, which is the primary outcome of the project.

For that project, agricultural lime, pelletized lime and wood ash (an industry by-product from a mill), are being tested to measure the impacts of PH on farm income and profitability.

“It’s assessing the economic feasibility and measuring the impact of liming over the three-year period, and the goals to design liming guidelines and management strategies, particularly for forage systems,” said Jeffrey. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to provide clear recommendations for producers. We’re seeing that soil acidity is a growing concern,” she said.

“When soils are strongly acidic, so 5.5 and under, the availability of many macronutrients for forages decreases and some elements will increase to toxic levels as well. So that’s a concern,” she said.

The Peace country, which contains the boreal forest, has a low pH and more acidic soils, so lime can increase the pH.

The third project is called the Longevity and Ecosystem Services of Perennial Forage Mixes.

Small plots were seeded in 2020, but the project will be monitored again between 2024 and 2026.

“We’re continuing to monitor the biomass production and feed quality of the forage itself, as well as water use efficiency and some soil health parameters,” she said.

A former PhD student who is now a staff member started this project to test water use efficiency, said Jeffrey.

“It’s been interesting because we have had some severe drought years in the time we’ve had these plots. We had our field day last week, and they had harvested these plots about two weeks before the field day and took their cut off them,” she said.

The project has highlighted the value of legumes in drought conditions.

“In the two very dry weeks since the plots were harvested, the only thing that has come back is legumes. None of the grasses have and the legumes look great, like they’re green, they’re up, they look fantastic,” she said.

The plots have been seeded with monoculture grasses, and everything in between, all the way up to monoculture legumes.

“We saw how strong of an impact those legumes had on the water use efficiency of the forage, and their ability to continue producing decent quality and decent quantity of forage in drought conditions,” said Jeffrey.

The project is now in its fifth year.

“We’re at the point where we are looking at how long can these plots continue producing a forage stand that’s worthwhile,” she said.

Jeffrey said there were other benefits to participating in the RSP.

“On the silvopasture project, we were able to get the rangeland specialists to come out to the site and do some of the data collection analysis with us. They looked at identifying all the species that were present and determined the proportion of the species that were there,” she said. “That was really cool.”

Jeffrey said the RSP is a great program, and she would encourage people to consider applying for it.

Applications for the program are now open for the 2025-2026 fiscal year. Applicants will be considered based on their knowledge and understanding of rangeland management. Applications are open until Sept. 17, 2025.

More information on the program and how to apply is available online.

The post Alberta invests $1.3 million in rangeland research appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“It was a surprise for sure,” said Laing, who lives with her husband, Smith, on the ranch in the foothills near Nanton.

The Environmental Stewardship Award recognizes exceptional commitment to sustainable ranching practices and contributions to the beef industry.

The couple found out they had won during the Summit event at the Calgary Stampede.

The event was attended by federal and provincial agriculture ministers, as well as Alberta Beef Producers members and representatives from Canadian Cattle.

Smith’s grandfather started the ranch in 1958 and was heavily involved in Herefords. He was the Canadian president of the Hereford Association and ran a test centre in Innisfail. He was also involved in the creation of the Waldron Grazing Co-op. Smith’s parents, Dan and Serena took over the ranch in 1971, and Smith and Laing took it over in 2016. Smith’s mother, Serena, attended the award ceremony along with Smith’s brother, Lloyd.

Smith and Laing are members of the Spruce Grazing Co-op and the Waldron Grazing Co-op. They have Savanna Creek and upper Livingston grazing allotments that are side by side, over a range of mountains. Their ranch, which is named for Plateau mountain, is a habitat for many species, including grizzly and black bears, cougars, bobcats, lynxes, foxes, raptors such as eagles, hawks, owls and even wolves.

“We send 160 to 170 cows to the mountains, and then the balance goes to the Waldron. And we have another couple small, rented pastures down here, where late calvers and stuff that needs a little more attention can stay close to home,” said Smith.

Smith and Laing are running 450 black Angus and black Angus cross cattle. There is still a bit of Hereford influence in some of the animals. They’ve completely switched to black Angus bulls and use Herdtrax to collect data on the cattle.

“That’s really helped as far as treating animals, whenever possible,” said Smith.

Animals are weighed at birth. The weights of the cattle are tracked and kept accurate.

“That really helps with medication and stuff,” he said.

“Working with our vet, we’ve got a full protocol book, and it’s attached to our Herdtrax. So it gives you first and second treatment type protocols,” he said.

Modern ranching practices

Smith and Laing have also been working with Désirée Gellatly, a research scientist at the Technology Access Centre for Livestock Production at Olds College.

The couple has been working on using lidocaine bands with Gellatly. Smith and Laing band their steers at birth.

They have also been practicing tactile stimulation (massage) on their calves as part of the research trials. Smith describes it as like imprinting a colt.

“The way most people tag and the way we used to tag, is to pull up in your side by side, or on your horse, and you leap off it and jump on them and put a couple tags in their ears and then get up and go away. As you can imagine, the animal doesn’t look very favourably at you the next time he runs into you,” he said.

Smith and Laing still put tags on the animals, but after they do this, they spend some time mimicking the cow’s action of licking the calf. They massage the calves, mainly on the hindquarters.

“We’ve kind of found that they like the shoulders and neck stroke too,” he said.

“We’re seeing a lot of improvements in herd health from the tactile stimulation, which is showing improved health because there’s less stress and less stress response when that calf sees a human,” said Laing.

The couple no longer brands their cattle.

“We find that we can have better quality control at vaccination and processing time for the cows rather than branding. It was a tough tradition to kick because we really enjoyed the social side of it, but we’re finding that for our operation, it works well. And we did see a gain in the calves of somewhere between 18 and 21 pounds that first year,” said Laing.

The couple are also taking DNA samples of the animals. As part of their DNA work, they’re participating in an Angus/Hereford genomic study on replacement heifers.

“Getting that parentage back has been great for the massage study, because then you can isolate that sire effect. We’re getting that double band out of the parentage, and then just for our own information — like what bulls are breeding, what bulls are working, and what ones aren’t working,” Smith said.

The couple has fenced off all their creek and riparian areas and put in a wet well watering system.

“We’ve done two zero energy off-the-creek watering systems, plus another solar water system that we’ve got now, and we’ve actually got one more ordered,” said Smith.

Laing and Smith are working on seeding the entire ranch back to grass.

They are looking ahead to the future and would love to get more vegetation on the creek sides they have fenced off. They are working with Ducks Unlimited on this project.

“We’ve definitely spent a lot of time on stockmanship in the environment in which the cattle are, and we’re looking at working with Prairie West to plant some more vegetation and willow to help with bank erosion on our waterways,” said Smith.

Environmental advocacy

Laing and Smith have been part of a grassroots group fighting to stop coal mining in the Eastern Slopes since the provincial government rescinded a decades-old coal policy in 2020. People working in their grassroots group include singer Corb Lund, local residents, organizations like the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, civic leaders and concerned people from across the province.

“That’s the biggest thing from an environmental standpoint. And I think one of the reasons people have spoken about the submission, and it’s kind of controversial, is because we’ve obviously been involved with the coal issue for about five years,” said Laing.

Ranchers are environmentalists, and it shouldn’t be a bad word, she said.

“That’s been a five-year full-time deal for us, and not a lot of fun, polarizing. But we have had success, like the government recently purchased back those leases that were going to be open for coal development in our grazing allotment. Even though it was in our grazing allotment, we weren’t fighting for that reason. We were fighting because we understood what that would mean for many people in their headwaters,” she said.

“I would say, from an environmental standpoint, that is the biggest threat and issue that’s faced this ranch in any generation,” said Laing.

“The coal issue was a big one for us. Trying to make environmentalist into a good word, and working with conservation groups was a positive, to try to change that narrative. As ranchers, we’re at the forefront because we live, work and play here and that’s a tough burden,” she said.

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“As you near the Old Man River, there’s a grassy basin, and it’s part of a grazing co-op owned by a group of ranchers called the Waldron Grazing Co-operative,” said Larry Simpson, senior advisor to the Alberta region of the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

In 1999, the Bob Creek Wildland Park was created thanks to British Petroleum, a company which donated 2,900 acres of its mineral interests to the Nature Conservancy of Canada to create the park. The park was about 70,000 acres.

In 2013, the Nature Conservancy of Canada entered into an agreement with the Waldron Grazing Co-operative to preserve the 13,000-acre Waldron Ranch.

Simpson said the piece of land at that time was the largest conservation easement in Canadian history. The Waldron Grazing Co-operative, possibly the largest grazing co-op in North America, used some of the money paid to them by the Nature Conservancy of Canada to buy the King Ranch.

“The last piece is the Bob Creek Ranch,” said Simpson. The ranch connects with miles of riverfront on the Old Man River and is bordered on two sides by the Bob Creek Wildland Park. The ranch is more than 2,400 acres.

The first phase of the project is done, and the groups are moving on to the second phase.

Conserving it will create a continuous land block of over 100,000 acres of conserved and protected lands within the headwaters of the South Saskatchewan watershed.

“When you put them all together, it creates connectivity between the Rocky Mountains and a forest reserve called the Porcupine Hills Forest Reserve. It creates 20 miles of connectivity in between two big blocks of land that are frequented by all kinds of wildlife and all kinds of people,” said Simpson.

When the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Waldron Grazing Co-operative put a conservation easement on the land, it does not mean that the Nature Conservancy of Canada owns it.

“It means they (the Waldron Grazing Co-op) still own it, but they have agreed to register restrictions on the title of their land, that they won’t subdivide the land, they won’t cultivate it, but they will still own it,” said Simpson.

The land can still be used for grazing and sold if future owners do not subdivide it or break it up in any way.

The Bob Creek Ranch was purchased by the Waldron Grazing Co-operative about two and a half years ago.

“We are looking to preserve this land so it can’t be developed. It can stay in the state that we’ve acquired it in, and it will be forever undeveloped and uncultivated and grazing cattle,” said Kim Wachtler, a member of the board of directors of the Waldron Grazing Co-operative and a fourth-generation rancher at Burke Creek Ranch.

“It’s important for people to know that we’re using cattle to keep these landscapes intact,” said Wachtler.

Negotiations to acquire the first piece of the Bob Creek Ranch began in 2021, and the land was acquired in 2022, said Wachtler. The Waldron Grazing Co-operative entered negotiations immediately with the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

“It took a while for them to get their funds together and go through terms to be worked out,” said Wachtler.

The conservation easement on the Bob Creek Ranch has been done in two phases. The first part of the conservation easement on the Bob Creek Ranch was finalized in May 2025. Wachtler said the second phase has acreages that are a bit different and there is more waterfront on the second piece.

The Waldron Grazing Co-operative was created in 1962 and took over a private ranch at that time. Since then, the co-operative has brought little pieces of land and attached them onto the ranch. There are currently 80 ranching families involved with the co-operative.

“As the shareholders, we find a lot more economies of scale. We can do things as a group that we couldn’t do as individual ranchers,” said Wachtler.

Both Simpson and Wachtler agree the Bob Creek Ranch is a unique area that can also be used for hiking, as well as grazing.

Wachtler said the area is very diverse and contains ecologically sensitive grasslands. Many species of risk pass through the land, including black bears, grizzly bears, moose and large herds of elk.

“There are different species at risk that they’re seeing out there right now. Some of these are things that you wouldn’t be so aware of, like leopard salamanders and different kinds of bats,” said Watchler. MULTISAR, an organization that collaborates with partners throughout Alberta to work towards conserving species at risk in the province, is currently doing a study on the land.

“They’re out there right now, assessing the range health and doing a wildlife species count and looking at the riparian areas,” she said.

Simpson said the area has an interesting mix of wildlife that you would find on the Prairies as well as the Rocky Mountains.

“Part of the Bob Creek Ranch is part of the Bob Creek Wildland Park, and it’s the largest block of uneroded montane. It’s not mountain, it’s just in between,” said Simpson.

There are big ridges, with partial forest with lots of open spaces.

Simpson said the area was Napi’s playground. Napi is a trickster figure in Blackfoot culture.

The Nature Conservancy of Canda is seeking support to help fund the second phase of the conservation easement and complete the Bob Creek Ranch project. When the second section of the Bob Creek Ranch is preserved, three quarters of a section will be added to the conservation easement.

“That’s going to happen here, this fall,” said Simpson.

“And so we need to raise $100,000 for that as well.”

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“This is the best start we’ve had for a year for a long time,” said Graeme Finn, founder of Union Forage and rancher near Crossfield, Alta. “These pastures now are looking in pretty good condition going in, pretty much right across the province of Alberta and into western Saskatchewan.”

In particular, producers who destocked after last season and refrained from overgrazing are sitting pretty right now, he said.

It’s a positive change from initial outlooks this spring. Many were bracing for another disastrous year thanks to a string of droughts and little snow cover.

Many areas caught a break in April and May when rain and snow fell across large segments of Western Canada. That included areas of Alberta that had reached critical drought levels in 2023.

“There were some amazing moisture or snow events in areas that were very dry,” said Grant Lastiwka, a forage specialist with Union Forage. “Medicine Hat had four inches of rain. Around Byemoor, it varied from an inch and a half to two inches to four inches, depending on where you were. And there was two feet of wet snow in the Longview and Claresholm areas.”

However, some areas still suffer from moisture deficits.

“The province is up and down,” Lastiwka said. “Some of this (moisture) might help some water bodies in certain places, but not all. The Peace country is still very dry, as I understand.”

The Peace and Manning regions of Alberta saw only an inch or so of rainfall, he noted.

Every bit helps, but “the degree of help is yet to be determined. I know a lot of people have empty water bodies. They’re still addressing a deficit, but it gets us off to a start.”

Saskatchewan

Pasture conditions in Saskatchewan are mixed, but recent rain has improved the picture.

“We were very fortunate in the last couple of weeks that the southern part of the province got enough rain to do some good,” said Garner Deobald of the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association.

“It buys us some time, but we’re not out of the woods yet. The majority of the province is still short on moisture. The worst areas would be in and around Swift Current, to the west from there and up along the Saskatchewan River.

“It’s been seven or eight years for some of those guys without much precipitation at all.”

Deobald recommends that farmers give pastures time to rest and recover before grazing. That’s a familiar refrain after year-upon-year of abnormally dry weather. Most operations are already trying to do that, he said.

“Where land has been overgrazed, it just takes longer for the grass to re-establish itself. But I think overall people have gotten way better at managing grass.”

Deobald said he’s optimistic about the coming year and hopes recent precipitation is a sign that the dry cycle is ending.

“It’s cyclical. We’ve gone through a number of years of dry weather, and I just get the sense that we’re probably coming to the end of the drought.”

Manitoba

Experts in Manitoba have said they’re also cautiously optimistic about the year.

As of mid-May, precipitation in the easternmost Prairie province sat between 75 and 100 per cent of normal, noted John McGregor, forage expert and extension support with the Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association.

The week leading into the May long weekend brought further rain.

“But we’re going to need more rain to help replenish the soil moisture that we were seeing depleted from five years of dry or drought conditions, depending on where you were in Manitoba,” he said.

Recent weather was cool and cold, which is not conducive to quick regrowth, he noted, but a few days of sustained warm weather would see forage lands substantially improve.

“When I look at the growing degree days, in almost all of the province we are above normal right now,” he said.

Manitoba farmers also ended last year with adequate feed supplies, lessening the temptation to graze cows too early.

“We got rains last fall that allowed cattle to do some late-fall grazing. We had a very mild winter, which didn’t use up as much of the feedstocks as we would normally see in a normal Manitoba winter,” said McGregor.

“In most cases, we are seeing producers with a slight surplus of feed on hand right now.”

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He’s got more than one variety growing – a grazing-oriented option and the typical silage corn – but the real experiment is happening beneath the canopy. This year, the corn shared space with forage soybean and hairy vetch.

The beans were “very impressive,” he said during a late-January tour to his farm south of Brandon, Manitoba. “In the best spots of this field, where there was 10-foot-tall corn, the beans were probably chest height.”

The idea of adding legumes to intercrops for soil health purposes is well established. The hope is that the field will benefit from added nitrogen fixation, along with the purported other benefits of intercropping, such as erosion prevention, green cover and weed suppression.

From a feed standpoint, both soybeans and vetch are high in protein, offsetting the typical weakness in corn, which is famously high in energy but requires supplementation when fed.

In recent years research stations have explored intercropping in terms of corn grazing and improved soil health and to gauge whether the practice could reduce time and cost associated with supplemental hay.

How it started

Forage soybeans are new to intercropping species lists in Western Canada.

The idea of a long-growing species, which would stay vegetative in a northern climate, was interesting to Joe Gardiner, co-founder of forage seed provider Covers & Co. The variety he chose, sourced out of South Carolina, was marketed for grazing and as a tool to improve soil health.

The ensuing trials showed promise. With soybeans added, Gardiner reported 40-50 pounds an acre of residual nitrogen in 30-inch corn rows. His own experiments on 60-inch rows showed even more, although the company’s current recommendation is to stick to narrower spacing to preserve biomass yield.

Forage soybeans were later integrated into plots at the Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization. The southwestern Manitoba research station, known for its intercrop innovation, had turned its attentions to forage corn mixes.

Forage soybeans joined tillage radish, Italian rye grass, crimson clover and hairy vetch in the lineup of corn companion crops. The mix fell prey to drought, grasshoppers and gophers, although organizers plan to try again in 2024.

The species has also been put to work on Manitoba Beef and Forage Initiatives, an applied research farm north of Brandon, said Covers & Co. sales manager Owen Taylor.

“We recommend sowing at 20 pounds per acre, either day before, day after or the same day as the corn planter,” he said. “Most producers will just solid-seed the soybeans, a lot of them, when they put the fertilizer down. Some producers were able to bump the planter over and sow directly between the rows.”

Producers fertilize the corn at regular rates, he added.

The company also urges producers to seed rows north-south to maximize sunlight between the rows.

Corn grazing is untested ground. The company typically sees the mix put to silage, Taylor said, with cows turned out afterward to graze the residue in fall or early winter.

“Probably 60 to 70 per cent of the plant actually ends up in the pile and we’re seeing an increase of 1.5 to two per cent in protein on a feed test. And then what’s left of the beans, guys are grazing it after.”

Producers who corn graze can expect the same soil health, nutrition and water infiltration benefits of intercropping for silage, Taylor said, but it’s unknown how snow load and leaf drop will affect feed quality.

How it’s going

McRae opted for 30-inch corn rows, but backed off the population. His stand was targeted at 24,000 plants per acre, down from the 30,000 he’s done for regular corn grazing.

The soybeans were seeded the day after the corn at the rate recommended by Covers & Co. Hairy vetch was seeded at five pounds an acre.

“I’ve liked it so far,” McRae said of the soybeans. “The beans, I think, are adding a little bit of protein and other minerals to it.”

That’s hard to quantify, he admitted. Feed tests prior to turn out showed an increase in protein and the beans climbed high enough to clear the snowpack, but he doesn’t have a split field set up to directly compare a pure corn system to the intercrop.

“I haven’t really sat there all day and watched them graze through it, but judging by what’s left when they leave the field, they’re eating enough of it that I think they’re getting some benefit,” he said.

Between hairy vetch and soybeans, however, the soybeans are winning. Both the corn and soybeans are glyphosate tolerant, making weed management easy, McRae noted. The vetch was stunted by the herbicide.

“I think that’s a little bit year-to-year dependent,” he said. “I was hoping the vetch would vine its way up the corn so we would be able to access it this time of year in the winter.”

There are few good herbicide options for a corn intercropm other than glyphosate.

“It’s just so hard to put another species into it because all of the corn herbicide is meant to kill everything except corn,” McRae said, adding that there is also the challenge of herbicide residue.

He has had a good winter for the experiment so far, Taylor noted. Snowpack has been light, reducing hurdles for soybean uptake.

Covers and Co. does not have different recommendations for corn intercrop grazing versus intercropping for silage, he said.

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Obioha Durunna, who is now in the third year of the study, says he was also prompted by the limited information available on backgrounding weaned calves in such systems.

Durunna says producers are reluctant to adopt forage blends because most of them haven’t tried them and there’s a lack of information about whether the practice is valuable.

“Some producers are a bit hesitant to use it, especially for winter swath grazing, not sure what will really suffice their needs during the winter,” Durunna says in an interview.

Preliminary results from two years of the study show there was no significant change in average daily gain between the two systems — one, a monoculture of oats, the other a forage blend of turnips, rapeseed, oats and forage peas.

More preliminary results showed that the overall feed quality of the forage blend was better than the oats.

Researchers collected biomass samples from the soft dough and hard dough stages to evaluate quality, but swathing is done at the hard dough stage.

From there, the animals start grazing the swaths at the beginning of November, and they finish at the end of January.

The study used six paddocks where cattle were swath grazed on two different forage systems.

“One component of this is really getting some objective information on animal performance,” Durunna says.

The researchers are also looking at soil health by comparing the two forage systems.

Durunna says before the study started, soil cores were taken from specific GPS points and samples will be taken again at the end of the third year.

Core samples will enable the researchers “to see if there is any difference in terms of soil characteristics and changes that can help differentiate the monoculture versus the poly crops,” Durunna says.

In the first year of the study, from 2021-22, seven steers were placed per paddock, but in the second year there were 10, and this year nine steers. He says they match the animal numbers to the forage yield to target a 90-day grazing period.

Another aspect of the study is virtual fencing.

“We want to see if we could deploy that technology to use it to move the animals, especially if you have a knee-deep snow,” Durunna says.

The virtual fence is the brand NoFence from Norway. It consists of a mobile app and the collars that the cattle wear.

“We saw really good numbers in terms of the charge retention of the NoFence collars,” he says. “So that gave us the assurance that these units can really work in Alberta winter. So it’s repeated this year, we’ll now reinforce that and then whether we could use it to move animals.”

Durunna and the other researchers are in the final year of the study. They will then compile the data. However, producers have asked about the study continuing with cow-calf pairs instead of steers, which is the next phase of the research.

“The next three years, we’ll look at cow-calf pairs, and then see which system would reduce mineral consumption. And we plan to deploy some automatic feeding systems that will measure mineral intake from the cow-calf pairs.”

– Melissa Jeffers-Bezan is a field editor with Canadian Cattlemen.

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The Marginal Areas Program on the Prairies is open to producers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, with DUC providing financial support to convert unproductive cropland to forage areas.

FCC clients can access up to $2,000 in credit if they take part in the program.

Kristine Tapley, DUC national lead for sustainable agriculture, said the program is focused on cropland that isn’t producing economic benefits to farmers.

“Maybe it’s a saline area or for some reason doesn’t have the yield that the rest of the field does. If you’re not seeing a return on investment, those are the areas this program is trying to target.”

While farmers know which areas are not producing, the program provides assistance in finding unproductive farmland.

“The farmer self-identifies acres to enroll. It’s not like we pick or choose where to go in the field.”

She said farmers can stop wasting inputs on areas that aren’t returning yield and they receive an upfront incentive to seed down to perennial cover.

“And you sign a 10-year agreement with Ducks to keep that marginal area in perennial cover.”

Producers can then apply for the FCC annual credit which runs at $50 per acre up to a maximum of $2,000.

The DUC compensation level will be determined by the land and will vary by province, said Tapley, with provincial representatives from the organization able to help farmers determine the incentive payment.

“It’s typically not easy to establish those acres, which is why we’re identifying them as marginal, and once they are established, then they’ll come out and see they are seeded to perennial cover and you will receive your cheque,” she said.

The specific perennial forage will vary because of differing soil conditions but Tapley added there is a pollinator package available for areas in which such plants will work.

“Because it is a forage blend, you can hay or graze it if you see fit but these are usually small acres here or there that are rounding off the corner of the field or that are just not part of the higher producing areas of the field,” Tapley added. “It makes good business sense for crop growers and the second is that at Ducks, we truly believe the best quality land should be producing food and we should be putting all of the technology and knowledge and resources we have into those good quality acres to produce as much as we can.”

More information on the program can be found at ag.ducks.ca.

– Alex McCuaig is a reporter with The Western Producer.

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