There is a group of ranchers in southwest Saskatchewan that is very active in maintaining the native rangelands. Over the years these ranchers, who are part of the South of the Divide Conservation Action Program, have aimed to maintain their conservation plan, benefiting the environment in their community in the southwest.
The South of the Divide covers 14,157 square kilometres in the southwest corner of Saskatchewan. Much of the area is natural mixed-grass rangelands in this semi-arid region. The area is bordered by Alberta on the west and Montana on the south. On the north and east, it is bound by the drainage divide along the Cypress Hills and Wood Mountain uplands. The area is part of the Milk River Basin, which drains into the Missouri River.
With its long history of conservation and maintaining the native rangelands, the group was a good fit for Agriculture Canada’s new Living Labs program. The project will identify agricultural climate solutions in Saskatchewan covering the brown, dark brown and black soil zones. It’s a producer-centred project that is part of a national Living Labs program to sequester carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Canada’s farmland.
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Kelly Williamson is the co-executive director of the South of the Divide Conservation Action Program. “This is a major initiative to identify agricultural practices to mitigate climate change on the Prairie rangelands,” says Williamson. “We have the financial support of $8 million from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada over the next five years. This new Living Lab will investigate how the prairie soils, plants and animals interact and influence carbon cycling and storage, the efficient use of nutrients and farm economics and conservation.”
Williamson adds that the project will focus on producers’ needs and interests. They have about 25 farms and ranches in the province that will be involved, he says.
“In this program, farmers and ranchers will avoid breaking up native and naturalized lands, implement grazing management practices, seed perennial forage species into new and existing stands and use annual cover crops for grazing,” says Williamson.
Dr. Mike Schellenberg, retired forage and rangeland scientist from the Swift Current’s Agriculture Canada Research and Development Centre, is the scientific lead on the project.
“Our goal is to bring farmers, scientists and collaborators together to develop and test innovative beneficial management practices to address climate change issues, reduce water contamination, improve soil and water conservation and to maintain biodiversity and habitat areas on the rangelands,” says Schellenberg.
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They have 40-plus researchers from various disciplines and agencies across Canada involved in the five-year project. Plus, there are many other conservation and livestock and forage associations involved as well.
Schellenberg explains the Living Lab examines the relationships between best management practices (BMPs) and grazing management on native grasslands, restoration of cropland to native prairie, avoidance of cultivation and poly-cropping (with an emphasis on incorporating livestock into the operation). It also involves carbon sequestration, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and boosting biodiversity of plants, soil microbes, birds and insects. Practices will also be assessed economically. The goal is to retain native and naturalized ecosystems in the rangelands, promote adaptive grazing, restore perennial plant communities and graze croplands seeded to annuals.
Previous research has concentrated on BMPs for Canada’s croplands, with little done on Canada’s rangelands to find climate solutions. “We don’t have any actual numbers on the benefits of various rangeland BMPs in relationship to how much carbon can be stored. We want to identify the BMP that actually works for carbon sequestration,” says Schellenberg.
Tom Harrison, rancher and range management consultant, is helping the South of the Divide Living Lab by working with agricultural producers to get involved as sites for the Living Labs project. He’s also leading the knowledge and tech transfer component of the Living Lab. Harrison is also working on other projects with the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Foundation, with funding from the Weston Family Foundation. The foundation is matching funds for the Living Labs.
“So far, I have about 30-plus producers interested in becoming research sites for on-farm Living Lab activities. Most of them are already actively involved in these types of projects,” says Harrison.
Harrison is participating in the socio-ecological evaluation team that will look at the uptake by ranchers and the public at large of the new information and BMP coming out of the Living Lab project.
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“Our Living Lab is primarily concerned with demonstrating how landowner activities will impact carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions on their land. We have put together teams that will standardize protocols to measure carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions.”
While climate is the main focus, Harrisson says they also want to look at how landowner activities might affect co-benefits such as biodiversity, water quality and socio-economic parameters. The socio-ecological committee will look at all these co-benefits, standardizing protocols for these parameters.
Currently, the Living Lab team is monitoring biodiversity on the various sites to establish a base measurement to evaluate the outcomes from the various BMP being assessed.
“This year, we are collecting bird, vegetation and insect data at 28 sites involved in grazing management. “We anticipate that next year we will incorporate the collection of soil organic carbon into these sites and expand the evaluation of co-benefits to more locations,” says Harrison.
Researchers are collecting insects using several methods, including the malaise tent system, says Harrison. Insects move into the open end of the tent, hit the wall, and travel to the top of the tent and into a collection canister. Every two or three days, students empty the canisters and take the insects back to the lab to identify and catalogue them. That information is fed into a huge database.
“Most of the work is being done by a post-doc from the University of Carlton and the Canadian Wildlife Federation is also a partner in the insect work. Birds Canada is gathering data on birds. We are thinking researchers from U of Alberta will be doing the carbon work,” says Harrison.
They want to see what insect diversity looks like at different sites on the Prairies, and understand the relationship between vegetation composition and structure, bird abundance and insects, and carbon sequestration and storage.
“Ranchers and farmers play a key role in managing and conserving the grasslands across the Canadian Prairies. Cattle and large ungulates are required to graze these areas in order to successfully manage the grasslands,” says Schellenberg.
However, those managing grazing lands don’t have the same access to carbon markets as annual crop producers, he adds. “Our research will try and investigate how these grasslands can contribute to carbon storage and greenhouse gas mitigation.”
Ranchers and farmers will be consulted throughout the five-year project to ensure their needs are being met and that they have buy-in with the research findings, Schellenberg says. “We want to make sure that the recommendations on BMP are practical for the farm and ranching operations in the Prairie eco-regions.”
Another goal is to help farmers understand the costs and benefits of implementing the innovations developed. The team will study the social factors that influence the adoption of innovations, as well as their social impact on farmers and their communities.
“We want to find out if the new best management practices are practical and profitable,” says Schellenberg. He adds that they also need to understand the long-term benefits to the public. Information about the economics and public benefits will help other producers decide whether to adopt new practices or technologies developed in the Living Lab.
“The results will help producers be recognized by the public for their contributions in the fight against climate change,” says Schellenberg
It is interesting to note that in the 1950s, Agriculture Canada’s Experimental Farm Services helped operate 170 Illustration Farms across Canada on privately owned farms. These farms were used as a method of transferring the latest agricultural technology to other farmers in the area, much like the Living Labs of today.
