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.”

The post Solar and sheep provide valuable farm diversification appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

In a one-hour presentation at the Western Canada Conference on Soil Health and Grazing in Edmonton, Alta. on December 12, he passed some of that knowledge on to conference attendees.

“If you own soil, we have to be able to look at what we’re doing and be able to see the changes. The power of observation is many times much greater than the data that goes with that observation,” Bieber said at the start of his presentation.

Bieber is a retired farmer from South Dakota, U.S. He travels the world, talking and teaching about soil health. Though his son has now taken over their operation, known as Soil Care, Bieber is still passionate about farming and soil.

When he started, though, it wasn’t to fix his soil – it was to cut costs and increase profits. The benefits to his soil came along with that.

To him, the most important part of soil health is letting the biology in the soil do what comes naturally.

“I’m just basically asking my soil biology, ‘do your job,’” Bieber said.

He said he saw the most success on their operation by doing a combination of long-term no-till and cover cropping. It’s important to keep the soil covered, to protect the biology, he said. If the soil is exposed, then the  soil’s biology will be disturbed by things like rain and chemicals.

“Look at tillage as being a disturbance, and it is,” Biever said. “That’s a physical disturbance. But we also have our biological disturbances, the herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, pesticides, they’re biological disturbances that cause the biology to not perform in balances.”

Bieber also used a version of adaptive rotational grazing, with both pastureland and on their cover crops. He said cows help with soil health because they move organic matter around with their grazing.

“These are our biological distributors because they’re taking what’s out on that native range land, and they’re bringing it out, and they’re spreading it very uniformly throughout our field,” he said. “That’s all we need. We don’t need to have that full coverage of manure out there, as long as we have it like that.”

Bieber said in addition to the cattle, the diversity of the plants grown has to support what the livestock bring to the land. He says it is important to listen to what your land is telling you and then to respond.

“We keep getting told, ‘Do it here, do it there. This is how to do it.’ But we never get the answers of why, and your soils will tell you the why.”

The Western Canada Conference on Grazing and Soil Health ended Thursday afternoon after three days and over 15 speakers. Topics ranged from cover crops and intercrops, grazing methods, types of forages to use, microbes and microbiomes and more.

The post South Dakota farmer focuses on soil biology appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“We hear about people advocating for the need to eliminate livestock from agriculture production, basically without really understanding the negative connotations that would have,” the researcher said during a recent webinar.

“We really need to be thinking about how we’re going to integrate livestock [and] cropping systems together.”

McAllister is a principal research scientist at AAFC’s Lethbridge Research and Development Centre in Lethbridge. He has given scientific talks around the world on the sustainability of ruminant production systems and is developing guidelines for a quantitative biodiversity assessment of the livestock sector.

“Pretty well the entire grassland ecosystem of North America was occupied by between 30 and 60 million bison that were on the land,” he said. “And, of course, those were extirpated in a relatively short period of time, less than 20 years.”

The resulting lack of manure production removed a vital food source for arthropods (bugs like dung beetles), which in turn reduced food supply for birds and other predators up the food chain.

“It really had a devastating impact on the grassland ecosystem,” McAllister said.

Development of agriculture in North America then saw much of that natural grassland converted to farms and cultivated fields.

Those grasslands were a “huge store of carbon,” McAllister said.

He believes grazing cattle have a major role to play in sustaining the grasslands that remain, and those landscapes, in turn, are critical to meeting Canada’s climate change targets.

“Grazing cattle have many characteristics and behaviours in common with American bison,” he said. “They’re not absolutely identical, but identical enough that cattle can support a similar ecosystem.”

Good for one, good for the other

Biodiversity and the carbon cycle are intertwined, McAllister said, and greater biodiversity creates a more efficient carbon cycle. The type of grazing system impacts both. He pointed to a study done in Stavely, in the Porcupine Hills, to illustrate his point.

The study observed different levels of grazing over 60 years. Researchers monitored light and heavy continuous grazing, not rotational grazing. Despite that, McAllister noted, results showed how different management styles had different effects on soil carbon and emissions.

“With light continuous grazing, they end up with more emissions because the cattle are eating lower-quality forage than they would be with the heavy grazing condition,” said McAllister. “But when you look at the amount of soil carbon sequestration, it was higher with the light continuous grazing relative to the heavy continuous grazing.”

That same study showed that heavy grazing can have a negative effect on biodiversity, but McAllister linked that to lack of consideration for rotational management.

“It’s less clear what impact it would have if you had heavy grazing and then allowed the area to sit dormant or not be grazed in the following year, mimicking what the bison would have done, where they would heavily graze areas, move through, and maybe not return to that area for two or three years.”

If that aspect were studied, he would expect a more positive picture on the relationship between cattle and biodiversity.

By his measure, cattle are critically important to biodiverse grasslands. Cattle impact depends on what they eat and what comes out the back end, as well as how they trample what they don’t eat. All of this depends on management.

“At an optimal density, you have disturbance and trampling of nutrients, which alters the ecosystem as well as contributing to diverse plant communities both above ground and below ground through those root systems,” McAllister said.

“If they consume seeds, they’ll spread those seeds as well across the landscape at the same time, all helping to increase soil organic matter, which will increase that water holding capacity, fertility, and the ability to produce food from these lands.”

Manure “still plays a really important role in terms of nutrient cycling,” he added. “Taking cattle out of a grazing ecosystem will result in a reduction in biodiversity.”

Location, location, location

Continuous heavy grazing is not a recommended land management strategy, McAllister said in an interview with Glacier FarmMedia, but rotational grazing can encourage healthy biodiversity while replenishing carbon in the soil. It also delivers economic benefits through increased forage production, resilience and livestock-carrying capacity.

Rotational grazing strategies can differ depending on location.

“The key thing, if you’re going to use a rotational grazing system, is that you have to adapt it to consider the geological or geographical location you’re in,” McAllister said.

“In southern Alberta, on the southern grasslands, you might get rain in May and June, and it might not rain for the rest of the season. After you move the cattle off, there’s no sense in putting them back onto that paddock, because nothing is going to have grown.

That means rotational grazing is easier to implement in areas of higher rainfall, such as the eastern Prairies.

But it’s not impossible, according to one Manitoba farmer. Manitoba Forage and Grasslands Association board member Amber McNish also noted in recent years she hasn’t been able to rely on typical rain.

“We’ve come off some pretty dry years and drought-like conditions. So maybe that rest period is looking more like a whole season, 90 days, or you’re not going back until the next spring, when we’re getting more rainfall,” said McNish, who incorporates rotational grazing on her family’s 120-head operation in Lyleton, Man.

That compares to the more typical 60-day rest period that McNish says many rotational grazing operations have targeted in the past.

“You can go in early spring, and then you give it that 60-day rest, and you can still get in there before the snow comes in the winter.”

Making it work

McNish doesn’t discount the need to tweak rest lengths and movement frequency based on herd size and farmer goals.

“If you have a 300-head herd on a very large acreage, you’re not going to be moving them as often,” she noted.

In comparison, the prospect of moving a 20-head herd more often is more practical, and keeps cattle from constantly grazing regrowth.

Cows will opt for young, fresh growth over more mature plants, which starts a cycle in which plants have little time to recover before being chomped again.

If greater biodiversity is the goal, however, then hard, bison-emulating grazing might be a goal.

“You can graze right to the ground, essentially,” said McNish. “Then you give it that 90 days, or a full season’s rest, and when you go back the following year, you will have some really great regrowth.”

A more intensive graze also forces cattle to eat things they would normally walk past.

“There could be some quack grass that those cows have chosen never to eat for four years. But when they do that hard, heavy, intensive graze, it gives everything a fresh start to regrow,” McNish said. “So, you’ll see different plants thrive in that scenario because they’ve never been given that opportunity before.”

The holistic approach

In the end, McAllister said, it comes down to adopting a whole-system approach when balancing cattle pros and cons on the landscape. All food production systems come with trade-offs.

“If we have fewer cattle grazing land, we will have less methane, but we might have a reduction in plant biodiversity within grassland ecosystems,” he said.

A version of this article first appeared in the Manitoba Co-operator.

The post Turning back the clock with grazing appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

He is among the proponents of rotational grazing. His 907 animals are mostly moved daily through relatively small paddocks, with a goal to grow soil health and productivity.

His land features an extensive piping system to bring water to those paddocks. He’s pursued a long list of sustainability oriented projects, and his ATV is fitted with a forage press of his own design, allowing him to test Brix level, a measure of sugar content that can be applied to forage quality.

Something stands out about his operation, however. Not a single animal has been there for more than five months.

Canart runs a yearling operation. Purchased animals arrive on his farm near Hargrave, Man., in spring and they’re shipped out around Labour Day.

“We typically will start buying calves and backgrounding them in a feed yard somewhere up until somewhere around the end of May,” he said.

The calves are rarely familiar with rotational grazing. Unlike cow-calf operators who use the same philosophy and have calves born into the system, Canart must get his animals up to speed after arrival.

The cattle are offloaded into a fenced corral system and then exposed to a training paddock.

“I like to try and get them out fairly quickly, like within a day,” Canart said.

That paddock is well fortified with six-strand electric fence. From there, Canart brings out the temporary fencing, marked with flagging ribbon to ensure cattle can see it. That fence starts with two wires, and eventually dwindles to one as calves become familiar with the system.

“Usually, I kind of like to let them be a little hungry so that they’re more interested in the grass than just running around,” Canart said.

Start small

The calves’ first exposure is in a small area, usually an acre or two. The herd may only need an hour to clear the grass in that area, after which they are immediately moved to the next paddock to get them used to the pattern of movement.

“I’ll just sit there, and then when I can see that they’ve kind of consumed the grass and they’re starting to look around, I’ll come right out there and take that wire down and they’ll get the next little piece,” Canart said.

“I’ll do that two, three, four times in a day, and it’s amazing how quickly they learn that when that guy shows up … there’s going to be new grass.”

He has few problems with calves that don’t clue in.

“I’ve had cattle out [and] it seems like they’re almost ashamed … they just hover around [the fence] wanting back in with their buddies,” he said. “Definitely you’re going to get the odd one that gets pushed out.”

Looking back, Canart says it’s hard to recall how he landed on his training regimen.

He had plenty of headaches in the years before he started his current system. Calves did not know to look for the regular moves, and the result was wrecked reels or animal injury.

“I think maybe I just became more and more comfortable with confining them with the temporary wire and eventually I just decided, ‘You know what? Let’s just do this – move, move, move, move,’” he said.

“It’s not fun to have a wreck when you have a temporary wire and a bunch of cows run through it.”

Hurdles

No system is all pro, no con, Canart’s included. Because he is constantly buying calves only to sell them a few months later, market volatility is a risk.

High cattle prices now, for example, require the price to stay high long enough for Canart to get the calves grown and back to the sales ring. That part of the business is masterminded by his brother.

Canart also holds an off-farm job as general manager of the Assiniboine West Watershed District, which provides a financial buffer.

In general, however, there might be benefit to adding yearlings to the farm, according to 2018 materials from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

A blog post published on the university’s website by beef nutritionist Travis Mulliniks said that drawing on multiple cattle classes, such as splitting the cow herd with some yearlings, offers more flexibility in grazing strategies and herd management that could be particularly valuable in drought years.

The post did warn producers to be wary of higher costs of production and higher risk, “which may not justify the potential added net returns for a risk-averse producer.

“However, the use of flexible grazers is a management tool that cow-calf producers should consider adding to their operation as part of a drought risk management plan to increase management flexibility and profitability.”

Canart says it’s a system that can be run without owning land and without the infrastructure needed to winter cattle.

In some years, he noted, there is also an argument for better return. He made the comparison between a short-term stock market trader and one who is in it for the long haul.

A version of this article first appeared in the Manitoba Co-operator.

The post Yearlings get schooled in rotational grazing appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Whether you’re managing a large operation that keeps you on the farm, have an off-farm job or possible family commitments, this program was designed for people who are interested in learning, but may not always be able to attend the many great workshops available,” the association says on its website.

“With a device, an internet connection and a will to learn, CFGA’s Advanced Grazing Systems Program is a course to provide anyone wanting the basics on rotational grazing a foundation of the most important concepts.”

The CFGA says the program is centred on increasing the total acres under a rotational grazing system. To implement it in various growing regions across Canada, the program has a two-fold approach:

• to provide producers access to funding to reduce possible financial challenges associated with trying or expanding the practice of rotational grazing in their operations
• To provide producers with information and resources they need to implement rotational grazing as it makes sense for their operations.

The CFGA says the platform creates opportunities for producers to learn on their own or connect with others who are learning the same materials.

“We also have created many opportunities to ask questions of mentors and other rotational grazing experts.”

The next step in creating a grazing plan is to put that plan into action. Through the On-Farm Climate Action Fund, CFGA is working with partners in Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec and Saskatchewan to distribute funds to farmers ready to put advanced grazing concepts into practice.

The CFGA says it’s finalizing details of the program and aims to release it in July 2023.

For more information, visit canadianfga.ca.

The post Putting a rotational grazing plan into action appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

But it’s no big deal, even though his livestock are formidable beasts, says the Hay Lakes producer.

“So much of it has to do with what everyone’s interpretation of what rotational grazing means to them,” he said.

“We use regenerative agriculture principles and use rotational grazing and cover crops as a tool in the toolbox. I guess we’re doing things a little differently in that we’re really trying to increase stock density.”

Sych, who farms with wife Sharril and oldest son Taylor, breaks larger paddocks into 35 sections that are roughly 10 acres each.

“At 10 acres, we are hoping to graze anywhere from two to three days maximum and then rotate off,” he said. “If you do the math on that, you’re grazing two days and then you rotate. By the time you go through all 35 and come back, you’ve had 70 days of rest period on your first paddock.”

This year, the Sychs plan to move up to intensive rotational grazing with an entire 150-head herd (cows, calves and yearling females) going through a paddock at once.

The family has been in the bison sector for six years and transitioned into bison from the elk industry.

“They’re a great grazing animal,” said Sych about bison. “They are a very strong herding animal. They love to stick together as a herd.”

There have been two constraints to higher grazing density: water and cross fencing.

“We solved the water thing by using solar powered pumps in a dugout,” he said.

Funds used from the On-Farm Climate Action Fund helped the Sychs get two quarter sections set up for water distribution.

Keeping them fenced

Cross fencing bison is a different matter.

“Cattle producers can easily put up single-strand electric fence and away they go,” he said. “We were (initially) unable to find anyone who was using cross fencing for rotational grazing with stock density in bison.”

But persistence paid off and they found a Saskatchewan producer who was doing it.

“He’s been successful at this,” said Sych. “He gave us the confidence that we can do it.”

Many people have asked him how he moves his bison, since they have a daunting reputation because of their size and reputation for being ornery. But it’s not that hard, said Sych, who uses a six-strand barb-wire fence and a two-strand high electric fence for internal fencing.

“Bison are extremely intelligent herding animals. They know the boundaries of their paddock. The bison are very easy to move. By doing this, you create a psychology within them. Every time you go out with that side by side, they look at you and think, ‘That means there’s fresh grass coming.’ They come running to us.”

And Sych means that literally. Bison are so keen to reach new pasture that they run right through the gates.

“We don’t herd them. They know to go. We just create the opportunity for them by opening the gate,” he said. “Most people think that bison are a skittish animal or ask how we handle them. They handle themselves.

“They are very intelligent animals that can be easily trained.”

The bigger challenge is getting the grazing system to a highly productive level.

“The same thing we’ve been seeing over and over is overgrazed paddocks. We’ve been trying to solve that,” Sych said.

The goal is to have less of the plant removed so that with proper rest time, it will produce more growth.

“But if you allow that animal to keep chomping on it a second time and a third and a fifth and they graze it back down to two inches, it’s very slow to respond and sometimes you miss the rest of the growing season,” he said.

Sych credits his son with the move into rotational grazing.

“I learned about grazing principles in 2013 and felt like I was a little on the stuck side of applying them and how to actually change. The impetus of that change was our oldest son, Taylor.”

His son was critical of his dad’s current system and helped to research the design and placement of the paddocks.

“We had good family discussions between himself, my wife and myself,” said Sych. “Joining together, we came up with a direction and we’re very happy with the direction that we are going. He brought some youthful enthusiasm into it, and it was much needed.”

The Sychs direct market bison meat through their website, www.sychhomestead.ca.

The post They’re big but not bad: Bison herd fits with rotational grazing appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“This is a program that will deliver directly to the farm gate, so farmers will receive a direct benefit, which is something unusual,” said Mark Redmond, chief executive officer of Results Driven Agriculture Research (RDAR), one of 12 national partners for the federally funded program.

The program will cover 85 per cent of project implementation costs, up to $75,000 per farm.

OFCAF’s website went live on July 28, and applications opened Aug. 4. The program will operate until March 31, 2024. Information, including details about informational webinars, can be found online.

Redmond said the application is fairly straightforward and several webinars were scheduled for August to walk producers through the process and background work before their plan is filed into the research management database. Applications can be accessed online.

“We have a special OFCAF team within RDAR who are available for your access and who will be bringing in other resources to help us deploy the program and help offer some guidance once you’re in the program,” he said.

Creating a BMP plan

“The key to this program is the successful adoption of beneficial management practices. That will require a map and a mapping of the farm so target zones for improvement will be identified. What you’re doing is identifying the management zones,” said Redmond. “Part of the plan for the farmer is to be able to engage a professional agrologist or a certified crop advisor to review the plan.”

Many farms in Alberta have already put an environmental farm plan in place, said Redmond.

“If you have one of those, then you’ve got a head start at getting OFCAF implemented on your farm. The major driver behind the program from Agriculture Canada’s perspective is to collect data, analyze the data and for that to help, not only the producers’ decision-making in how to implement technology, but also how this will guide policy in the future.”

Regarding the federal target of reducing 30 per cent of nitrogen emissions by 2030, Redmond said it will be important to demonstrate the effects of these changes in practice, particularly in fertilizer management. He noted there are beneficial management practices such as variable-rate seeding and fertilizer application or other precision agriculture tools.

“We don’t know how effective they are in the field for changing the environmental factors that we are looking to affect, so this program will allow producers to adopt some of the processes, but also offset some of the costs of getting set up to run these different procedures.”

EFP lite

For example, in the case of rotational grazing, a producer could divide a large paddock and use GPS fencing as opposed to electric fencing, Redmond said.

In that case, the costs of the fencing and the management professional will be covered.

Costs that can be covered are listed on the rdar.ca/ofcaf website, but some eligible costs include baseline measurements, equipment rental, soil testing and soil mapping.

“It’s about getting those baselines, getting the action plan and the cost of adopting that action plan. Those will all be eligible. Getting help with the analysis will be something that will follow,” Redmond said.

The program is an opportunity for farmers to make improvements without taking on a lot of financial risk.

“There are some really good tools and beneficial management practices available right now. If you want to try them, and you don’t want to put major areas of production at risk, the OFCAF program will help reduce that risk, lower the barriers to adoption, and point us in the direction of what techniques are suitable,” Redmond said.

The scope of the program is quite large, and about 19 per cent of Alberta’s farms will be expected participate, he said.

He estimates about 540 farms will be involved in cover cropping programs, 1,200 will take on rotational grazing initiatives and 6,000 will participate in nitrogen management.

“The belief is that the tools are there. It’s just a means of using the tools and OFCAF will help the producers with learning what tools are best.”

The post Make environmental changes on your farm, but without the risk appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

But a new federal program may assist livestock producers in upgrading to a grazing system that advocates say is more profitable and makes ranches more resilient.

The federal government wants more cattle producers to adopt rotational grazing and is making it one of the centrepieces (along with cover cropping and more efficient nitrogen use) in its $200 million On-Farm Climate Action Fund.

That’s a bonus for a practice that has already proven its worth, say grazing experts.

“Rotational grazing is light years ahead of continuous grazing, which is just turning animals out in one big area,” said Bart Lardner, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan.

Research has shown rotational grazing not only produces more forage per acre but also more nutritious forages and that, in turn, lowers methane emissions from cows, he said.

“A good grazing system that is thought out to provide adequate rest for those forage species at the same time provides high-nutrient value feedstuff to the grazing animal,” said Lardner.

“There’s no doubt that many studies show that high-quality diets reduce production of enteric methane.”

And reducing this type of methane emissions (enteric means from the gut of ruminants) is something producers need to embrace because it isn’t just a government preoccupation, said Cedric MacLeod, a New Brunswick rancher and executive director of the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association.

“As primary producers, we’re seeing it from a number of levels, both political and operational on the business side,” said MacLeod. “These value chain players are making commitments to their consumers, and there’s only one way to achieve that and that’s through on-farm action.

“We’ve got to deliver a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. This is the kind of path they’ve chosen.”

Specifics about the On-Farm Climate Action Fund haven’t been announced as Ottawa hasn’t yet chosen the “delivery partners” that will run specific programs. (The call for proposals only closed in late September.)

The program might see subsidies for capital costs (most of which are for fencing and watering systems). But it is the management part that is most daunting for many producers, said Lardner.

“The take-up of adoption of it is challenging — it’s a time commitment,” he said, adding each farm needs to take a tailor-made approach. “Many operations are multi-enterprises. Is it straight cattle or cropping? Do they have another operation on that farm or ranch?”

Producers need to first consider the right stocking rate, intensity, frequency, duration and timing, and then create a setup to allow that.

“When you want to set up a rotational system, you have to think about fencing, you have to think about waterways, you have to think about alleys,” he said.

Those sorts of challenges may be the reason why the number of producers using this system is low.

“The Census of Agriculture will suggest that rotational grazing is deployed on about 25 per cent of beef farms,” said MacLeod.

But the term is not clearly defined and the true number is much lower, he added.

“Active rotational grazing management is at about five per cent in Canada,” he said.

But the payoff is worth the effort, both men said.

In certain areas of the country, rotational grazing could boost forage productivity by 25 to 50 per cent, although in many parts of the Prairies it might only be 10 to 15 per cent.

But that’s still a sizable boost, said MacLeod.

Studies have shown a rotational grazing system produces more pounds of beef per acre than a continuous grazing system, added Lardner. They have also found soils stay moister in a rotational grazing system and the pastures are more resilient, he said citing one of his students who ranches near St. Brieux (northeast of Saskatoon) who was hit by the severe drought last summer.

“He didn’t run out of pasture,” he said. “He could get in there and get off and allow some rest. It goes a long way. You leave litter and your soil health is better, and the hoof impaction is there.

“All of these things are improving the resource — the soil — at the same time as trying to reduce enteric emissions.”

Some of the research Lardner and his team are working on right now is on integrating different crop types, specifically legumes, to reduce emissions further.

And while the number of active rotational grazers is still low, many are enthusiastic advocates who are both refining management systems and spreading the word about its benefits. Many are in Alberta, said Lardner, who started his academic career in the province (at the old Fairview College). He pointed to the Foothills Forage & Grazing Association, Peace Country Beef & Forage Association and other farmer-led research groups in the Agricultural Research and Extension Council of Alberta (ARECA). The Canadian Forage and Grassland Association has been trying to encourage wider adoption and works with groups such as ARECA and provincial forage councils, said MacLeod.

“The other groups that we’ve started to engage a lot more with is the conservation community,” he said. “Watershed groups are doing a lot of good work around watershed management and fencing infrastructure and are key partners in these kind of projects.”

The post Rotational grazing set to get a boost from climate action plan appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.