The federal government will pay over $530,000 in Ecological Goods and Services (EG&S) funding to take inventory of farmers’ land use in the southeastern corner of Saskatchewan, set landscape goals and work out the bill to reach those goals.
The study by the Lower Souris Watershed Committee is one of eight EG&S pilot projects in the country. The watershed committee includes 15 participating rural municipalities, around communities ranging from Moosomin and Kipling in the north to Gainsborough and Carnduff in the south.
Committee watershed co-ordinator Sheldon Kyle said in an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada release Thursday that this project will help the committee work out how future EG&S programs can be used to reach the environmental goals for the watershed.
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Though about 80 per cent of the watershed area is now cropland, its undisturbed natural state is considered to be “the zone of transition between open grasslands and continuous forest,” bearing a mix of aspen groves and fescue grasslands, according to the committee.
This EG&S project will take an inventory of agricultural land uses and work out the “most effective tools” to reach outcomes such as cleaner water, soil renewal and protection of habitat, the government said in its release.
Landscape goals will be set for the quality and quantity of riparian areas, aspen parkland and tame grassland for habitat, and on-farm data will be used to calculate what it will cost farmers to reach these goals.
Other EG&S pilots include the Alternate Land Use Services (ALUS) program in the Manitoba R.M. of Blanshard, in which area farmers receive funding for stewardship projects much like what the Lower Souris project hopes to plan out through this study.
