The Rural Voice, 1988-05, Page 24"STEWARDSHIP LAND"
A
Changing the Look of the Countryside
good farmer used to be
known by how clean his
plowing was — mounds of
brown earth in a straight furrow, neat
and uniform, with not a hint of stubble
showing.
Not anymore. This is 1988 and
trash left on the field is now visually
acceptable, even desirable. Soil con-
servation has become such a pervasive
concern that every agricultural estab-
lishment, from university departments
to 4-H clubs, has taken direct action.
And while pioneers in conservation
tillage have been displaying their
residue for some years now, with the
advent of the Land Stewardship
Program many more farmers will be
following their lead.
Laurence Taylor, chairman of
the Land Stewardship committee in
Huron County, has his headquarters
downstairs at the Ontario Ministry
of Agriculture and Food office in
Clinton. He lays out a large map
showing "stewardship land" in Huron.
It's dotted uniformly across the
county. "People will be able to date
the beginning of the program by the
change in the countryside," Taylor
says.
At the end of April, about 175,000
acres of a possible 550,000 acres in
Huron were part of the program.
Taylor already sees spin-offs from the
program, such as an increased demand
for the Ontario Soil Conservation and
Environmental Protection Assistance
Program II (OSCEPAP II). Another
offshoot, he says, is that tree -planting
machines are being developed.
The Land Stewardship Program
is a three-year agreement between the
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and
Food (OMAF) and the Ontario Soil
and Crop Improvement Association
(OSCIA) with a budget of $40 million.
Some farmers — dairy farmers, orga-
nic producers — aren't too happy
about it. They say they've been using
good conservation measures all along
and are left out of the program.
Richard Sovereign, president of
the OSCIA at the time the program
was established, says that the intent of
the program was to help farmers adopt
new practices and new ideas. There
are parts of the program, such as
planting trees and using buffer strips,
in which dairy farmers and organic
producers can take part, he says.
If nothing else, he adds, the
program has created an interest that
wasn't there before. "The program
has been more beneficial in making
people think, in getting them to make
out an action plan and to deal with
problem areas."
Eligible farmers are Ontario resi-
dents who own or lease farm land in
Ontario that produced at least $12,000
in sales of agricultural products in the
last fiscal year. To apply for assis-
tance, they fill out an Inventory and
Action Plan identifying their manage-
ment practices, soil degradation
problems, and proposed solutions.
The solutions must involve practices
that are new to the farmer or to the
land to which they will be applied.
The grants are available for a range of
conservation measures, from seeding
fragile land to forages or trees to
taking a soil -conservation course.
The maximum grant per application
is $30,000.
Sovereign says he hopes that by
the end of the three-year period farm-
ers will see the benefits and apply
stewardship principles over their total
acreage.
Tom Sawyer, manager of strategic
projects in the agricultural division of
Ciba-Geigy and guest speaker at the
annual meeting of the OSCIA, has
also praised the program. Conser-
vation authorities, he says, spend
millions of dollars to build dams;
farmers can build millions of dams:
"Every piece of residue is a dam."
Don Hill, OSCIA president
The recently elected president of
the OSCIA, Don Hill of Grey County,
says that the reception of the program
is beyond expectations. In Waterloo
and west, basically a 12 -county area,
total applications have reached $38 -
million, he says. The only problem is
that the area has been allotted only
$18 to 19 million. The program is
over -subscribed by $2 for every $1,
22 THE RURAL VOICE