Catching the Green Wave

Good environmental stewardship is good farm management

By Stephen Leahy

Summary

“Conservation is getting nowhere,” Aldo Leopold lamented in his foreword to A Sand County Almanac in 1948. It’s taken too long but conservation is getting somewhere in Canada and will take a major leap forward as agriculture undergoes a major transformation from low-price commodity agriculture toward conservation agriculture.

Tens of thousands of Canadian farmers and ranchers are taking action right now to improve the environmental health of their lands in spite of the enormous pressures of the global marketplace and often poor crop prices. This is happening across the country because of the united support by provincial and federal governments, agricultural producer associations and conservation groups like Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC).

“Good environmental stewardship is good farm management,” says Dean Smith, manager, stewardship coordination at Agriculture and AgriFood Canada. Good environmental practices prevent problems such as poor water quality, and help enhance farm productivity while optimizing the use of fertilizer and pesticides, says Smith. “The public also wants to buy their food from greener and more sustainable healthy farms.”

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