Producer-led group hopeful for locally-led climate action projects for Manitoba and Prairie Producers
Aug 12, 2021 (Winnipeg, MB) - As Manitoba’s foremost producer-led organization in the provision of regenerative agriculture expertise and the producer-championing of soil-boosting farm practices through all their networks, Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association (MFGA) applauds the federal government’s $200 million announcement and call for proposals by Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau today around On Farm Climate Action Fund to support farmers in reducing greenhouse gas and build resiliency to climate change.
“As we all know, we are in the middle of a hard-hitting drought complete with some areas hammered by a grasshopper infestation here in Manitoba and many producers are facing challenges and hardship,” says Larry Wegner, MFGA Chair. “At the same time, in the community spirit and fortitude that Manitoba’s agricultural community is well known for, we know that even in these tough times that Manitoba livestock and forage producers are sharing insights and expertise around two of the areas mentioned specifically by Minister Bibeau in the announcement today: rotational grazing and cover crops.”
Wegner points to the outstanding success of the MFGA Regenerative Agriculture Conference over the past three years – attendance surpassed 1,000 households over the four-week 2020 online MFGA conference last year – and the recent pandemic-impacted in-person tour of Ryan Boyd’s South Glanton Farms near Brandon last week as strong links to today's announcement. Wegner also pointed to back to back projects via the Conservation Trust, a Manitoba Climate and Green Plan Initiative administered by Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation, where two projects over successive years led by MFGA and three Manitoba Watershed Districts has put more 5,600 acres into cover and relay crops as proof of farmer leadership. Wegner says this is a very clear looking glass into the vast potential for Manitoba producers to excel in this program in partnership and in collaboration with local groups like MFGA.
“Farmers like to learn from farmers and work with farmers. They trust a farmer down the road, or two municipalities over, or a producer from a nearby prairie province as much as they trust anyone,” says Wegner. “We know this and because of this, MFGA gives the producers exactly that forum to exchange information and expertise among each other. We have Made-in-Manitoba experts on rotational grazing and a long line of cover crop expertise from our producer advocates who have been advancing cover crops in Manitoba, at the outset, basically on their own dime and time. That background should be doubly valuable and doubly-counted now and hopefully the Minister and the federal government will look hard at local options to help this program realize best success. Manitoba producers will respond to a Manitoba-led non-prescriptive, collaborative approach on this important stuff. We have seen that first-hand.”
Today’s funding announcement and call for proposals is focused on Climate Action and rightfully so, says Wegner, especially in the wake of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report released earlier this week that showed every global region as facing increasing changes. Additionally, he says, when it comes to rotational grazing and cover crops, there are a whole suite of ecological goods and services to be realized including water management, biodiversity, and soil health as well as others.
“A healthy agro-ecosystem produces many ecological goods and services, one of which is carbon storage. Farm practices change from operation to operation. However, by striving towards healthy agro-ecosystems to provide EGS, producers are coincidentally engaging in practices that store carbon and reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions,” says Wegner. “Practices that sequester carbon and mitigate agricultural greenhouse gases do not work against profitability and provision of EGS. Practice change may have a cost, but focus needs to be on balancing the cost so that productivity benefit is more than the practice change. This call for proposals is also an awesome opportunity to showcase all the positives on that front and MFGA looks forward to submitting our proposal and doing as much as we can to help this project realize best success in Manitoba for our producers and our province.”
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For more information:
For More Information: Duncan Morrison , MFGA Executive Director
