On March 22, the federal government announced it would develop such a strategy, calling it “an opportunity to discuss how we can address freshwater-related threats and opportunities,” protect freshwater ecosystems, and secure water for communities and the economy, according to a news release.

The Canada Water Agency, which was repurposed in 2024 as a stand-alone freshwater management agency separate from Environment and Climate Change Canada, will spearhead the strategy’s development.

While the announcement was scant on details of what such a strategy might look like, it said the agency will work with provinces and territories, First Nations, Inuit and Métis partners, “stakeholders across sectors” and the public.

Farmers should be among those consulted, the CFA said in a statement to Glacier FarmMedia.

“Water security is absolutely critical for the future of Canadian farmers. Farmers in different regions of Canada have been devastated by water issues over the past few years, such as the floods in B.C., or the ongoing long-term drought in the Prairie provinces,” a federation spokesperson said.

“A lack of water has severe negative impacts on any type of farm, no matter what they grow or raise.”

Prioritizing food security, agriculture

The strategy should protect farmers and mitigate the effects of water-related events. It should also secure predictable access to water so farmers can maintain food production — for example, through effective water management policies and investment in water infrastructure, CFA said.

“Farmers need to make it clear that food security and agriculture production should be prioritized if there was any issues with access to water.”

“Farmers are also on the front-line of climate change, dealing with the on-ground realities of water-related events,” CFA added. “They have experience and knowledge that will be critical in developing this strategy.”

While the announcement made no specific mention of the agriculture industry, the sector will have an opportunity to share its views during the public engagement process, “recognizing that freshwater is fundamental to our economy, powering industries, agriculture, and the growth of communities,” a federal spokesperson told Glacier FarmMedia.

The federal government has not yet set timelines for consultations, but said those will be announced “in the coming months.”

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Of the total, grain movement was up by five per cent on the year, hitting 10.4 million tonnes, with Canadian grain up by more than 11 per cent.

“Again in 2023, the St. Lawrence Seaway demonstrated its resilience and reliability, as well as emphasizing its role as an essential component of the Green Shipping Corridor,” said Terence Bowles, President and CEO of the SLSMC.

“Marine commerce on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway plays a key role in supporting 246,000 jobs and US$36 billion in economic development activities across North America,” added Adam Tindall-Schlicht, GLS Administrator.

Dry bulk movement of agricultural supplies and construction materials topped 12 million tonnes, which was up by five per cent on the year. Liquid bulk traffic was up by 3.4 per cent at 3.6 million tonnes.

After the longest scheduled shipping season in history, the Montreal/Lake Ontario section of the seaway closed for the season on Jan. 5 with the Welland Canal closing on Jan. 7. Annual winter maintenance and infrastructure renewal programs are currently underway.

Looking ahead to 2024, the SLMC and GLS will focus on further developing the Green Shipping Corridor to leverage the environmental and economic benefits of marine shipping to regional and global communities.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin is an associate editor/analyst with MarketsFarm in Winnipeg.

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“By increasing our export capacity at Port Windsor, we’re helping our farmers get Canadian grain to international markets, which is good for economic growth and for global food security,” said Pablo Rodriguez, the federal minister of transport.

The federal government will pitch in up to $26.3 million toward the company’s terminal expansion project, it said in a news release.

The expansion will include increased grain storage, greater loading capacity, new grain drying equipment, and the development of “an automated truck kiosk system to expedite complex traffic flows,” the release said.

It’s projected to “significantly increase” the Great Lakes terminal’s export capacity, and alleviate current bottlenecks.

The release said the expansion should “address issues such as idling trucks, waiting times for marine vessels to dock, and locomotives shuttling around railcars for temporary grain storage on-site.”

—Geralyn Wichers is associate digital editor of AgCanada. She writes from southeast Manitoba. 

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Jeff Cook has the highest yield in the program at 173.4 bushels per acre and Mark Davis had the highest yield potential at 117.6 per cent.

Why it matters: Networking, large volumes of data and competition is helping to encourage better winter wheat management and yields in Ontario.

The Great Lakes YEN encompasses growers in the United States and Canada and is run by the Grain Farmers of Ontario, Michigan State University, Michigan Wheat Program, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the University of Guelph.

The second and third place winners in both the overall yield and the highest yield potential categories were from Michigan.

Great Lakes YEN participants increased this year’s average yield by two bushels per acre to 118 bushels per acre. Fall 2022 planting conditions were excellent across the Great Lakes YEN region, giving winter wheat an ideal start to the growing season. Weather conditions in spring and early summer 2023 brought some challenges to program participants, with unseasonably cool temperatures across most of the region in the spring, followed by a significant lack of rainfall in May and June. Despite a wet harvest, cool nighttime temperatures through the grain fill period translated to higher yields than anticipated.

Now in its third year, the Great Lakes YEN project fosters knowledge exchange among farmers seeking innovative methods to enhance their winter wheat yields. This year’s Great Lakes YEN project participants will come together in January for wrap-up meetings, providing them with a valuable opportunity to connect and share successful farming practices with their peers.

Farmers interested in participating in the 2023-2024 Great Lakes YEN are encouraged to visit greatlakesyen.com/how-to-participate/ for more information and to register to receive program updates, and to watch for the hashtag #GreatLakesYEN on Twitter/X. Registration for the program opens on December 4, 2023 and closes on February 2, 2024.

Here’s the list of the winners:

The winners of the Great Lakes YEN competition for the highest yield potential include:

Mark Davis (Ontario) – 117.6 per cent

Jeffery Krohn (Michigan) – 107.2 per cent

Wallace Loewen (Michigan) – 107.2 per cent

The winners of the highest yield are:

Jeff Cook (Ontario) – 173.4 bushels/acre

Nick Suwyn (Michigan) – 171.43 bushels/acre

Jeffery Krohn (Michigan) – 167.1 bushels/acre

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Unifor members represented by Locals 4211, 4212 and 4323 in Ontario and Locals 4319 and 4320 in Quebec “have all delivered strong strike mandates,” the union said in a release Wednesday.

Locals 4211 and 4319, which represent the seaway’s supervisory and engineering group of workers, had already voted Aug. 1 to reject a tentative deal, Unifor said.

The maintenance, operations and administrative unit, represented by Locals 4212, 4323 and 4320, announced Oct. 12 its members had voted 99 per cent in favour of strike action if a deal isn’t reached by a deadline of Saturday (Oct. 21).

“Employers have seen that workers will absolutely use their right to strike when they feel it’s necessary, and our members in all units at the Seaway have had enough,” Lana Payne, Unifor’s national president, said in a release Wednesday.

“It’s time to come to the table with a serious wage offer or the employer can watch what happens when workers stand together and demand their fair share.”

“This employer has shown no willingness to address the workers’ concerns in the workplace or approach them with a respectful wage offer,” Unifor Quebec director Daniel Cloutier said in the same release.

Unifor said such a strike would “effectively shut down transit through the Seaway.”

SLSMC concurred in a separate release Wednesday, saying that “should the unionized workers proceed with strike action, the St. Lawrence Seaway will be closed to all traffic.”

The not-for-profit corporation, which handles movement of marine traffic through Canadian Seaway facilities — that is, 13 of the waterway’s 15 locks between Montreal and Lake Erie — said it has started to implement its plans for an “orderly and safe shutdown of the system” within the 72-hour notice period.

Meanwhile, SLSMC said it “remains committed to obtaining a fair settlement, and will continue to bargain in good faith with the assistance of a federally-appointed mediator.”

“Cargo movements through the Seaway are an important part of the North American economy
and supply chain,” the corporation said Wednesday.

“In particular, this labour action would impact grain movements during a period when the world is in dire need of this essential commodity, even as supply has been affected by the situation in Ukraine and the greater frequency of extreme weather events being experienced around the world.”

A separate U.S. government corporation, the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corp. (GLS), operates seaway facilities within U.S. territory, including two locks at Massena, N.Y., about 120 km southeast of Ottawa. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Funding was announced July 17 by David Piccini, Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, at Kaiser Lake Farms in Greater Napanee. Piccini said in a release the projects will improve water quality, reduce plastic and salt pollution and increase collaboration with farmers, Indigenous organizations and communities to help improve the Great Lakes. Project investments will also help progress the restoration of environmentally degraded areas of the Great Lakes.

The projects are led by community groups, not-for profits, conservation authorities, universities and Indigenous organizations and communities across the province and support commitments in the Canada-Ontario Agreement on Great Lakes Water Quality and Ecosystem Health and Ontario’s Great Lakes Strategy.

Some of the organizations receiving funding include:

• Lower Trent Region Conservation Authority, which received $65,000 to work with area farmers to reduce excess nutrients from agricultural lands. Kaiser Lake Farms in Greater Napanee is one of the farms taking action on their land to help improve water quality and help restore the Bay of Quinte Area of Concern.
• Quinte Conservation Association, which received $162,791 to reduce nuisance algae and manage phosphorus in the Bay of Quinte Area of Concern. The project will also monitor and maintain the area’s water quality, fish and wildlife habitat while identifying emerging threats such as invasive species and climate change.
• St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences, which received $402,187 for projects that will continue monitoring mercury in fish, sediment and industrial sites to make sure clean-up actions in the St. Lawrence River Area of Concern were effective and support the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne to study the health of Lake Sturgeon and Eel.
• Raisin Region Conservation Authority, which received $140,000 to develop and implement an agricultural land stewardship program and facilitate an outreach and education program to improve water quality within the St. Lawrence River Area of Concern.
• Governing Council of the University of Toronto, which received $610,416 to assess Great Lakes water quality (quantifying nutrients loadings, chlorides, microplastics discharges and tire compounds), evaluate drinking water treatment processes and assess practices that reduce excess nutrients and nutrient runoff from agricultural lands to the Great Lakes.

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A team of international researchers reported that some of the world’s most important freshwater sources — from the Caspian Sea between Europe and Asia to South America’s Lake Titicaca — lost water at a cumulative rate of around 22 gigatonnes per year for nearly three decades. That’s about 17 times the volume of Lake Mead, the United States’ largest reservoir.

Fangfang Yao, a surface hydrologist at the University of Virginia who led the study published in the journal Science, said 56 per cent of the decline in natural lakes was driven by climate warming and human consumption, with warming “the larger share of that.”

Climate scientists generally think that the world’s arid areas will become drier under climate change, and wet areas will get wetter, but the study found significant water loss even in humid regions. “This should not be overlooked,” Yao said.

Scientists assessed almost 2,000 large lakes using satellite measurements combined with climate and hydrological models.

They found that unsustainable human use, changes in rainfall and runoff, sedimentation, and rising temperatures have driven lake levels down globally, with 53 per cent of lakes showing a decline from 1992 to 2020.

Nearly two billion people who live in a drying lake basin are directly affected and many regions have faced shortages in recent years.

Scientists and campaigners have long said it is necessary to prevent global warming beyond 1.5 C to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change. The world is currently warming at a rate of around 1.1 C.

Thursday’s study found unsustainable human use dried up lakes, such as the Aral Sea in Central Asia and the Dead Sea in the Middle East, while lakes in Afghanistan, Egypt and Mongolia were hit by rising temperatures, which can increase water loss to the atmosphere.

Lakes in Canada’s Arctic were part of the drying trend, the study found, “partially because of changes in temperature and PET (potential evapotranspiration), which is in line with broader climate changes toward increasing evaporative loss due to higher lake temperatures and reduced lake ice extents.”

Water levels rose in a quarter of the lakes, often as a result of dam construction in remote areas such as the Inner Tibetan Plateau.

Declines seen in naturally occurring lakes were in part offset, the study found, by “precipitation- and runoff-driven LWS (lake water storage) gains” in others such as the Great Lakes and Lake Winnipeg.

In all, the study said, between 1984 and 2015, satellites have observed a loss of 90,000 square km of permanent water area — an area equivalent to the surface of Lake Superior — whereas 184,000 square km of new water bodies, mainly reservoirs, were formed elsewhere.

Trends and drivers of global lake water storage have remained “poorly known,” the study added, which “impedes sustainable management of surface water resources, both now and in the future.””

— Gloria Dickie is a Reuters climate and environment correspondent in London. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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Minneapolis-based Ceres Global Ag announced Wednesday it has sold the well-known terminal at Port Colborne, Ont., about 30 km west of Buffalo, N.Y., to London Agricultural Commodities (LAC) for US$4 million.

The flour mill, built at what was then known as Humberstone to produce Robin Hood Flour during the Second World War, was shut down in 2008 by its then-owner, Horizon Milling (now part of Ardent Mills).

Ceres took over the facility in 2010 and repurposed its two million bushels of storage capacity as a grain export terminal. In 2019 Ceres began a long-term storage and handling services agreement with LAC, committing most of the terminal’s capacity to LAC traffic.

Ceres’ employees at the terminal will now transition to work for LAC, the companies said Wednesday.

“This strategic move to take ownership of a facility we have previously leased further demonstrates our commitment to the industry and exercises our ability to efficiently plan for more internationally bound cargo shipments,” LAC president Richard Smibert said in a release.

LAC noted its deal to buy the site comes in the wake of a $45.3 million project announced Jan. 11 by the federal government and St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. for reconstruction and rehab work on three wharf sites at Port Colborne.

Port Colborne is at the south end of the Welland Canal connecting Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. The federal government, which put up $22.7 million for that project under the National Trade Corridors Fund, said the project will help relieve “supply chain congestion” in the region.

“It is expected the facility will in time see increased cargo volumes to export markets served by southern Ontario farming exports of soybeans, wheat and corn,” LAC said Wednesday in its release.

The Port Colborne terminal’s storage capacity is the equivalent of about 50,000 tonnes of grain, with capability to handle truck, rail and vessel traffic as well as corn drying capacity of up to 1,200 bushels per hour at 10 points moisture removal.

London-based LAC, operating since 1985, runs a cash grain trading business focused on corn, wheat, food-grade identity-preserved soybeans and feed ingredients and byproducts. Along with Port Colborne, it owns two southwestern Ontario inland grain handling and processing sites, at Thamesville and Tupperville, and partners with 15 other inland grain handling facilities in the province.

On Ceres’ part, the deal “aligns with our long-term strategy of optimizing our footprint around our core products and the locations where we operate,” CEO Carlos Paz said in a release.

Ceres has recently dialed back on some of its business plans. Last summer it indefinitely shelved its previously announced plans to build a canola crush plant in southeastern Saskatchewan as it “re-examine(s) the economics” of that project.

The company last June also closed a deal to sell its special crops handling facility specializing in bird food at Ste. Agathe, Man., to Orenda Commodity Services. Ceres reported a gain of $3.7 million on the sale of the former Delmar Commodities site.

Ceres’ assets in the Canadian crops sector today include Manitoba-based Delmar Commodities’ other grain handling and soybean crush facilities, plus a U.S. border grain terminal at Northgate, Sask.; a former Cargill grain elevator north of Tisdale, Sask.; and minority stakes in Canterra Seeds and Saskatchewan shortline Stewart Southern Railway.

Last March, Ceres also extended its reach into North Dakota, picking up a 50 per cent stake in Berthold Farmers Elevator previously held by Columbia Grain. The Berthold business has grain handling sites at Berthold and Carpio, N.D., about an hour southeast of Northgate. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Aside from the Rocky Mountains and some areas around the Great Lakes, the U.S. was largely still snow-free heading into that country’s Thanksgiving holiday.

Meanwhile, nearly all of Canada is already blanketed with snow and preparing for Christmas, aside from some areas in the Maritimes. Satellite imagery shows a line running right below the Canada/U.S. border, with snow to the north and bare fields to the south.

Manitoba has the lightest snowpack of the Prairie provinces, with only one to four centimetres across most agricultural areas, according to satellite data. The southeastern corner of Saskatchewan has similar conditions to Manitoba, while the rest of the province reported snow levels in 10 to 19 cm range.

For Alberta, the snow depth ranges anywhere from two to 22 cm across agricultural areas.

Eastern Canada was seeing a major snowfall Monday, with southern Ontario seeing as much as 20 cm of snow. The storm was tracking through Quebec and into Labrador, with the forecast calling for as much as 75 cm at Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

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According to representatives from farm groups, environmental groups and municipal governments, understanding this truism is critical to finding solutions to Lake Erie’s algal bloom troubles.

Why it matters: Investigating phosphorus filtration technologies for drainage systems and ones that work at the individual farm level, can help improve the Lake Erie ecosystem while providing practical knowledge to policymakers when devising potential regulations.

This sentiment is the main philosophy behind a recent $600,000 project, the investment coming from the federal Great Lakes Protection Initiative, to develop and test technologies that remove phosphorus from water flowing through field drainage systems.

This farm-focused project was launched by the Thames River Phosphorus Reduction Collaborative, a group comprising agricultural organizations, municipalities, conservation authorities, First Nations, and environmental non-governmental organizations working to find ways of meeting Canada’s commitment to a 40 per cent reduction in total phosphorus entering Lake Erie.

The project’s initial steps involve finding and implementing phosphorus filtration technologies on farms throughout the Lake Erie basin. According to material from the Collaborative, this specifically means “Low–tech passive systems using beds of sorptive materials (woodchips, steel slag) that react to and bind with phosphorus.”

Charlie Lalonde, project co-ordinator for the Collaborative, says the initiative is looking specifically at technologies adaptable to field drainage systems because phosphorus loss can be a reality on any farm regardless of production practices. Currently, the provincial average for phosphorus loss is about half a pound per acre.

“There’s many factors …. Cover crops help, using the 4Rs helps, but there’s still loss. Even if everything is being done there’s potential for loss,” says Lalonde. “The ability to implement systems to intercept phosphorus on farms represents the last barrier in drainage systems.”

At a recent field demonstration of the first filter system installed as part of the initiative, Louis Roesch, a grain and livestock farmer from Kent-Bridge, and director with the Kent Federation of Agriculture, says his priority is understanding how much phosphorus he is actually losing and when he is losing it.

“A bad regulation can close a business. We need to have the data first. Then we have something to follow,” he says.

Randy Hope, mayor of Chatham-Kent and the project’s co-chair, also reiterated during the event that data generated from the phosphorus filtration system on Roesch’s farm, as well as those not yet implemented on other farms, will provide context for how Ontario farmers are doing when it comes to reducing nutrient runoff.

This will provide policymakers with greater context when it comes to imposing potential regulations, while helping the agriculture community as a whole understand and alter current best management practices.

Hope also said one of the goals of the Collaborative organization is to develop a “menu” of technologies that can help others find solutions for all farm types and locations. This includes American farmers who Hope says may not be as advanced in proactively managing nutrient loss.

“It’s not saying this one is going to be used in another (production) system. We’re inviting innovation. The important part is it’s flexible,” he said.

Technology to reflect farm diversity

Lalonde said a handful of different filtration technologies will be tested at different sites. Similarly, the characteristics of each farm test site will differ in soil type, whether it’s part of a livestock or crop operation, topography, and other characteristics. Together, this will help determine how different technologies work in a diverse array of agricultural systems.

Farmer participation in the project is voluntary and Lalonde said the project is being run through the local agricultural federations. He and his colleagues hope to have a handful of sites operational by October, giving them the ability to start measuring how much phosphorus is being lost between late fall and early spring — the most acute period for phosphorus loss. Measurements will be carried out over the following three to four years.

Municipal water treatment systems could benefit

Nicola Crawhall, project lead for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, another participating group, adds there is interest in expanding what’s learned at the farm level to larger, municipal drainage systems.

“In-field systems are very small and can only deal with a certain amount of flow. We’d need more capacity to do it at municipal treatment systems, but size is a problem,” she says.

“It would need to be the size of a shipping container. We are almost taking vegetable wash systems and scaling them up, or taking municipal systems and scaling them down.”

Regardless, Crawhill, Lalonde, and Hope all separately expressed the need for phosphorus filtration, and possibly reclamation, systems to be as affordable as they are customizable.

The cost estimate for Roesch’s filter system in a 25-acre field is $10,000. However, those demonstrating the system said they anticipate being able to reduce that cost as they learn more about each system.

Filtration system on Roesch farm

• The system comprises two holding tanks to manage overflow during heavy precipitation events.
• Phosphorus levels in the water are measured before and after entering the filter.
• Measurements taken before illustrate how well the farm holds phosphorus, while measurements afterward calculate the system’s reduction effectiveness.

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