It seems there is confusion between the terms “sustainable” and “regenerative” as applied to agriculture. Both are even perceived, in some instances, as forms of organic farming. I checked around and looked for definitions of both terms and found them both on the internet, at Wikipedia.

I will take some excerpts from each and let at least the perceived definitions provide you with some direction.

Sustainable agriculture

The term “sustainable agriculture” was defined in 1977 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as involving the following objectives:

• Satisfy human food and fibre needs

• Enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agricultural economy depends

• Make the most efficient use of non-renewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls

• Sustain the economic viability of farm operations

• Enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole

The definitions and terms pertaining to “sustainability” go on and on. It’s confusing to each and all of us. I will try a few of my ideas later on in this article.

Regenerative agriculture

In the information that I was able to dig up on “regenerative agriculture” it was listed as a conservation and rehabilitation approach to food and farming systems. It focuses on topsoil regeneration, increasing biodiversity, et cetera, et cetera. Regenerative agriculture is not a specific practice. It includes recycling farm waste and certainly not selling off any bales of straw. Basically, a straw baler should be sidelined in favour of a straw chopper.

My personal definition would be as follows: putting back onto your cropland what you took away after 100 years of farming on the Prairies. That means never removing crop residues, and putting the phosphate, potash, sulphur and micronutrients that you removed back to comparable levels for your farming area. Your nitrogen inputs should match that which you take out with your crop target yield. That might be 40 bushels of wheat for southern Saskatchewan or 90 bushels of wheat for central Alberta, both contingent on soil moisture. Of course, you have to input all of the macro- and micronutrients needed by the wheat crop yield that you harvested.

—> READ MORE: Regenerative agriculture is difficult to define

“Soil health” is basically a nonsense term aiming to evoke empathy. We all know we can grow huge crops of tomatoes, peppers or cucumbers in Prairie greenhouses entirely with nutrient-balanced water. We can grow crops on pure sand if we have effective irrigation. In Washington state I have known of 40-ton crops of potatoes taken off irrigated and well-fertilized desert sand.

“Sustainability” is getting the target crop yield based on geographic area matched with your crop nutrient inputs.

I have seen cropland quarter-sections in central Alberta where the landowner had taken off endless hay crops without any inputs. Over 30 or so years, that landowner managed to drain the hay land of virtually all of its macronutrients, and the resulting hay did not even have the nutrient value of weathered wheat straw.

On the other hand, I have run into hog producers farming a section of land who have upgraded the cropland immensely. One landowner showed me a neighbouring section of land growing a barley crop that would be pressed to grow 40 bushels, replete with large clods of clay. His own land had a 90- to 100-bushel barley crop and soil that had become mellow over the years as a consequence of these manure inputs. He also was proud of the fact that his tractor drawpower needed was less in the days before zero till.

That’s what I call sustainable farming.

Think! Ten thousand years ago, the Canadian Prairies were covered with ice. In the ensuing years the Prairies grew grasses and forbs and developed under an irregular prairie fire regime that kept out the trees, primarily aspen (woody dandelions).

—> READ MORE: Searching for sustainability in agriculture

As North American animal grazers — bison (buffalo), deer, gophers, rabbits, ground squirrels — moved in, they were preyed upon by wolves, bears, foxes, coyotes, cougars and humans. The grazing animals dropped their manure and urine, as had the predators and humans. None of the gradual buildup of nutrients from soil breakdown and nitrogen fixation and aerial deposition was removed from these Prairie lands. It was all recycled.

Along came farming and export — and nutrients were removed, not replaced. Around 50 or so years ago we began that replacement, via concentrated crop nutrients.

Do not confuse sustainable or regenerative agriculture with organic farming. Farming of the Canadian Prairies 100 to 150 years ago was comparable to organic farming: plough the land, harvest the crop or livestock and sell them to urban centres. There were no macronutrients, and micronutrients were never considered. The land was tilled annually and, more often than not, fallowed for weed control and nutrient release from the soil. There were no pesticides (herbicides, insecticides, fungicides). Animals had various diseases infectious to humans such as tuberculosis and brucellosis, as well as fleas and ticks, and milk consumption was dodgy.

We have come a long way, but we can always get better. Do not worry about those poplars; they are not forest trees, just big woody invasive weeds.

One last thought: “Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.” – T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party, 1949

The post ‘Sustainable’ versus ‘regenerative’ agriculture appeared first on Grainews.

It’s why he wrote Practical Regeneration: Realistic Strategies for Climate Smart Agriculture.

“The main thing was going to all these conferences of just amazing results from practices. It was, I call them, ‘celebrity farmers,’ it’s not even research scientists or policy makers, it’s people who have fairly extraordinary claims of those things are working,” says Gillespie, who has nearly two decades of experience in dryland and irrigated specialty crop agriculture.

“A lot of the point of the book is first of all having things that are economical that make sense for farmers to do. You shouldn’t do something just because it’s a principle, because someone says it does something.”

More efficient input use

Gillespie says more efficient use of inputs is an area where farmers could make improvements with further research on best practices, although he acknowledges they have already made great strides.

“Realistically, when you look at western Canadian production compared to a lot of other areas in the world, we use a lot less fertilizer and we all are mostly no-till. The big things that are going to help, we are already there comparatively (to other nations),” he says.

“Even broadcasting fertilizer, banding it or placing it right physically into the soil, that is already happening. In some ways, they are already further ahead in Western Canada, and we can keep going forward. Comparing it to even 20 years ago, we are using more nitrogen fertilizer, but our yields are higher. If you look at use per bushel, we are getting more efficient. Just because of the climate being drier, we don’t use as much fertilizer as other areas do. A big one, I think, we can do is improving mapping with precise rates for different zones in the field.”

Agronomists combine the science of growing crops with enhancing the soil and then advise farmers when they have questions about either, he says.

His podcast, Plants Dig Soil, focuses on scientifically proven practices that benefit the planet and provide for farmers’ economic sustainability.

Carbon as a tool

His book has 24 chapters that touch on such topics as defining regenerative agriculture, a long view of regeneration, return on investment, evaluating products, full-season cover, when rains don’t come, strategic tillage for soil health and selling and using carbon as a tool.

“The last half of the book is talking about carbon sequestration programs, which are a little bit different. They are talking about paying farmers to put carbon into the soil. My opinion is you can’t just put carbon into the soil. It’s a system; you can put more in, but it activates it,” Gillespie says. “They will talk about being more regenerative, getting your soil working for you. A better functioning soil is more biologically active, so if you put more into it, more comes out of it in terms of carbon dioxide, so it doesn’t change things a whole lot.”

In the days of climate-change anxiety, Gillespie has seen people choose agricultural systems that seem right on the surface but don’t make a noticeable difference.

His book starts with the broad strokes of what Gillespie has learned in his own personal garden.

Gardening was a hobby growing up on a farm in southern Ontario, and that love of the land blossomed into a life-long journey in agriculture.

He attended the University of Guelph, where he earned a BSc in agriculture before pursuing his MSc in plant science at the University of Manitoba. Gillespie has a professional designation (P.Ag) from the Alberta Institute of Agrologists and has Certified Crop Advisor (CCA) status from the American Society of Agronomy.

Healthy soil practices

The book shifts to how farmers can get practical in implementing the main healthy soil practices, such as cover crops and intercropping. It segues into how farmers can advance their practices above the basics, concluding by looking into the future and examining how farmers can look at profitability in the long term.

“A lot of it came down to me doing my own investigation, science-wise. Looking for published reports, things written by scientists or third-party trials on things where they test out the practice or the product,” Gillespie says.

“All the new products coming out, the biologicals being a big one, they don’t have third-party data, they have testimonials and internal trials. Well, you can’t trust those. They can give an indication, though.”

Gillespie, who runs an agronomy business, Plants Dig Soil Consulting Ltd., says his book focuses on southern Alberta but can also be applicable to other regions.

“It has helped people find out more about how I think, and then when they need consulting work, whether it’s farmers or organizations that need help wading through stuff, I have had a few who have directly told me they read the book and now they are coming to me.”

The book has been read in the Netherlands, Australia and the United States, he adds.

Gillespie says many of the farming practices followed on the Prairies improve soil health, even though that’s not producers’ main motivation. For example, he says he keeps hearing about increased use of stripper headers, which leave taller residue on the land. Technically, the practice follows the soil health principle of leaving more armour on the soil.

“But they are not doing it because it’s a soil health principle; they are doing it because they are trapping a little bit more snow, and it’s making for a bit better microclimate for the plants. The wind is not as hard on them, and it’s not quite as hot, it’s not as harsh down there,” Gillespie says.

“It’s little adaptations that add up over time. It’s a long-distance race.”

The post Alberta agronomist sees both sides of regenerative agriculture appeared first on Grainews.

“That’s one of the biggest things we’re doing now,” Joel Merkosky, president of Johnston’s, said during an interview at Ag in Motion 2025.

“That’s a huge focus of what we’re going to be doing moving forward.”

The company made its name by selling off-patent crop protection products.

“We’re trying to find an offramp off of that, viewing those more as emergency use products and focusing (instead) on resilient soils,” said Merkosky.

Follow all of our Ag in Motion coverage at the Western Producer.

That doesn’t mean the company is done selling agricultural chemicals. Johnston’s is in the process of building a 10,000 sq. foot warehouse in Moosomin, Sask., and leasing space in Calgary to store its old and new product offerings.

However, it sees regenerative products as the future, which is why it recently established Johnston’s Regenerative, a new branch of the company.

Better ways of boosting soil health

Michael Launer, director of sales with Johnston’s Regenerative, says there are better ways to improve soil health than spreading more synthetic fertilizers on fields.

He claims that farmers who work with Johnston’s typically cut their fertilizer use by 25 to 35 percent and see a 15 to 20 percent increase in yields.

“That’s a pretty bold claim, but you know what, we’ve got the proof to back it,” he said.

Launer said the firm “takes a lens to the soil,” conducting a full-spectrum soil analysis in conjunction with Cropland Solutions, a lab based in Tofield, Alta., headed by Karthi Narayanan.

Narayanan holds a Ph.D. in applied microbiology from the University of Saskatchewan and is an advocate of regenerative agriculture.

Launer said Narayanan’s analysis provides insight into what is transpiring on the farm and how the fertility program can be improved.

“It’s amazing what can be achieved without driving the cost of their programs up,” he said.

Exploring more factors of soil health

Traditional lab tests analyze the amount of micro and macro nutrients in the soil.

Narayanan’s lab delves deeper, exploring factors such as water holding capacity, oxygen levels, microbial respiration rates, humic and folic acid levels, sodium saturation rates, calcium-to-magnesium ratios and ammonium levels.

Each soil test costs $100, and two to three are typically required per quarter section. The price includes a review of the lab results and recommendations.

The tests are made available to the company’s more than 4,000 farmer customers.

Growers are asked what crop they intend to plant, what is their usual fertility program and what is their targeted yield for that field.

The recommendations can sometimes be shocking. Last year, Johnston’s told a farmer to cut his fertilization program by 85 per cent on one field.

“His agronomist damn near fell out of his chair,” said Launer.

The farmer had been applying 250 pounds of fertilizer per acre despite having hardly any rainfall on that field. Much of the previously applied fertilizer was still sitting in the soil.

The recommendation was to also apply biologicals to help cycle the nutrients.

The grower agreed to use Johnston’s recommendations on one-third of his field.

“He outperformed the rest of his field by 23 per cent on that,” said Launer.

“So now this year we’re doing all of his field and his brother’s.”

Soil may be deficient in biology

Launer said 90 per cent of the fields they analyze are deficient in biology due to the over-use of synthetic fertilizers.

Johnston’s sells biological products such as worm castings and bio-stimulants through its partnership with Annelida Soil Solutions. However, the grower can purchase them from anywhere.

He said existing agronomy methodology is based on selling farmers more synthetic fertilizer every year.

Merkosky said Johnston’s also just became the western Canadian distributor of Weed-It, a precision spraying system.

The chlorophyl-detecting system is built into booms that are then installed on self-propelled sprayers.

The Weed-It system sends a red light to the soil during the pre-burn process and spot sprays exactly where it detects a weed.

Merkosky claims the system has a 98 per cent hit rate while using 10 to 15 per cent of normal pre-seed chemical levels. The weeds can also be hit using higher rates of chemical.

“You can do a far more potent mix because you’re not spraying your whole crop,” he said.

The company is selling 120-foot units for $300,000 and 132-foot units for $335,000.

The post Agriculture chemical company embraces regenerative farming appeared first on Grainews.

So, if food companies and agri-food corporations want producers to try new practices and shift toward regenerative agriculture, it will require peer-to-peer education.

“Without that, we’re going to have a hard time reaching scale,” Watson told the Reuters Transform Food and Ag conference held in Minneapolis last fall.

By “scale” he means the various government and corporate goals of making regenerative agriculture a standard practice on thousands of farms and millions of acres.

Some in the agri-food industry believe payments or financial incentives will convince farmers to try cover crops or reduced tillage, but Watson and General Mills are honing in on grower education.

“Some (of our) programs don’t even have those financial elements. It’s more focused on training and technical assistance … community and culture building,” Watson says.

“The producer has to know how to be successful in implementing something new …. We (General Mills) are thinking about how we make sure those dollars we employ are well spent and drive lasting change.”

In Canada, General Mills has partnered with ALUS on a regenerative agriculture program called Growing Roots.

ALUS partners with farmers to create “nature-based solutions on their land” that are designed to improve climate resilience and biodiversity.

From 2022-24, ALUS enrolled 115 western Canadian producers in the Growing Roots program. They are involved in 234 regenerative agriculture projects across more than 12,000 acres, ALUS said last July.

General Mills is committed to Growing Roots and is providing more funding, which will extend the program through 2026.

At the heart of the project is training and peer-to-peer education. ALUS has created a partnership advisory committee of farmers, agronomists and other leaders in regenerative agriculture.

Those experts share their knowledge with producers in the program.

“Farmers look to each other to find guidance and support, and ALUS helps create the community needed for this …. (This program) allows me to provide that support by sharing the successes and failures my operation has experienced with a larger network of producers,” says Tannis Axten, who runs Axten Farms at Minton, Sask.

Other organizations also use training to spread the good word about soil health.

Starting this year, Assiniboine Community College in Brandon will deliver training to certified crop advisers in Manitoba and Saskatchewan about soil health and conservation agriculture. The program is branded as the Canadian Prairies Trusted Advisor Partnership.

General Mills, PepsiCo, Bimbo Canada, Nature United and the SouthEast Research Farm at Redvers, Sask. support the program.

It “will offer a master class in soil health agronomy, water management and diversified cropping systems, covering established and emerging stewardship practices in topics like residue management, zone mapping, variable rate technology and tillage reduction,” Assiniboine said in its announcement last August.

In a related project, the college is developing a soil health network with support from the Weston Family Foundation. It has created a website, www.soilhealthnetwork.ca, to share information and create a peer-to-peer network.

It’s clear from the ALUS and General Mills project that farmers want to improve the health of their soils. A survey asked the 115 farmers in Growing Roots about their reasons for joining the program.

Ninety per cent said they want to build soil health and more than 80 per cent said they want to improve soil organic matter. About 70 per cent said they want to enhance soil water infiltration.

Less than 10 per cent were interested in markets for regenerative commodities and only 20 per cent were motivated by potential payments from carbon markets. GN

The post Peer groups are a pathway to improved soil health appeared first on Grainews.

He is fully committed to improving his soil health and the long-term sustainability of his business.

Other producers follow their own path, but Overby worries that thousands are casually using the word “regenerative” to describe what they do.

“It really bothered me to see a survey the other day, that said 70 per cent of farmers in the United States think they are regenerative farmers. No way,” said Overby, who farms near Wolford, south of the International Peace Garden.

In November, Overby spoke at the Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association Regenerative Agriculture conference, an event held every fall in Brandon.

Following his speech, he acknowledged he couldn’t recall the source for that 70 per cent number — but it could well be accurate because regenerative agriculture, a term commonly used for at least seven years, still isn’t well defined.

Archer Daniels Midland, in its 2024 Regenerative Agriculture report, defines the term based on five principles of land management:

• Minimizing soil disturbance

• Maintaining living roots in the soil

• Continuous cover of bare soil

• Diverse crop rotations and diverse biology in the soil

• Responsibly managing nutrients and pesticides

If a farmer follows one or two of those practices, they might meet the definition of regenerative — or not.

The Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association tries to avoid the debate over what is and who is regenerative. It has hosted the regenerative agriculture conference since 2018 and takes an “open arms” approach where all producers are welcome, executive director Duncan Morrison says.

“If those 70 per cent of farmers think they are regenerative agriculture farmers and they want to take that next step to learn more, well, here we are,” he said during a coffee break at the event.

“Come learn more and decide what’s best for your farm.”

The 2024 conference attracted more than 250 people, so there are producers on the Prairies seeking more information about the practices and outcomes of regen ag.

Many at the Brandon event were younger than the average farmer in Western Canada.

“People in that demographic, 25-45, seem to be latching on to this,” Morrison says. “For them, this is a way they want to farm.”

Overby, who is not between 25 and 45, has been fully committed to soil health and doing things differently on his North Dakota farm for about seven years.

He followed reduced tillage and other sustainable practices, but in 2018 he signed onto the General Mills regenerative ag program. The information and technical assistance has changed his approach to grain production.

By improving soil health, Overby now believes it’s possible to use fewer pesticides, less fertilizer and make the plants “do some of the work” to find nutrients in the soil.

The concept of cutting input costs is a fundamental part of regenerative agriculture. Producers who use cover crops, integrate livestock into the farm and follow other principles of soil health are focusing less on maximizing yield and more on minimizing costs.

“Especially when it comes to inputs,” Morrison says. “It’s money that they’re not putting out that they’re considering as a saving (and more profit).”

There is no association in Western Canada that focuses on regenerative farmers. What does exist is a coalition of like-minded organizations, with members who are committed to soil health.

“There are a lot of synergies between our groups and we talk. We’re not big organizations, for the most part.”

The post Regenerative agriculture is difficult to define appeared first on Grainews.

During a coffee break at a sustainable agriculture conference in Minneapolis last fall, she provided a six-minute, rapid-fire explanation on how farming can be transformed in North America and around the globe.

That transformation needs to happen, she said, because climate change and extreme weather have become massive risks for crop production.

“We’re hearing directly from producers … that the failure of crops and the inability to work the land, because of a flood or drought, is really wrecking their bottom line,” says Volkova, chief executive officer and founder of Regrow Ag, a U.S. firm that connects farmers with agri-food businesses to “dramatically reduce land-based emissions” from agriculture.

For Volkova, the solution to cutting emissions and making farming more resilient is regenerative agriculture.

That involves practices like cover crops, reduced tillage, diverse crop rotations and use of livestock, all connected to the larger goal of improved soil health.

The shift toward regenerative agriculture will happen in three stages, according to Volkova.

First, there will be short-term incentives for farmers to adopt certain practices and payments for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Then there will be medium-term benefits to farmers, because better soil should mean less need for fertilizer and pesticides; and that will lead to long-term resilience for producers and food supplies, since regenerative farming is more resilient to drought, flood and severe weather.

“Being able to maintain yield, or almost the same yield, in catastrophic loss years, will drive the premium for the farmer when the supply for neighbouring farms will not be as resilient,” says Volkova, who was born in Ukraine and has a PhD in aerospace engineering.

She and her team at Regrow have built a sustainability platform that allows agri-food companies to track greenhouse gas emissions.

Corporate interest

As an example, Cargill may want to know the on-farm emissions from the spring wheat it purchases in Saskatchewan and North Dakota so it can report on the carbon emissions in its supply chain.

Volkova isn’t the only person leading the charge for regenerative agriculture, also called climate-smart agriculture.

PepsiCo has a goal of seven million acres in its supply chain, in which farmers follow regenerative practices. McCain Foods, General Mills and Mars have similar targets.

There are also environmental groups, charitable foundations and chief sustainability officers at massive companies who are leaning hard on the regenerative boulder.

They’re all trying to push it uphill because they’re convinced that regenerative ag practices must become standard practices on tens of thousands of farms.

“For us to cool the planet and leverage the soil for the carbon sequestration … this has to be the new norm for all farming,” Volkova told Reuters last summer.

There are dozens of programs and projects in North America that encourage farmers to plant cover crops and try related practices. The words used to describe the projects include regenerative, climate-smart, resilient, and so on.

In Canada, the federal government created the On-Farm Climate Action Fund and committed more than $200 million to projects coast to coast. OFCAF promotes cover crops, nitrogen management, rotational grazing and other practices that reduce on-farm emissions and store carbon in the soil.

South of the border, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) promised to spend US$3.1 billion on about 140 climate-smart agriculture projects, although much of that support is now in doubt following the election of Donald Trump as president.

In addition to government, corporations and environmental groups also have incentive programs for climate-smart ag.

Tony Mellenthin, a Wisconsin farmer, tried one of the programs in 2024. Speaking in October at the Reuters Transform Food and Ag conference in Minneapolis, Mellenthin said the sheer number of sustainability projects and incentives is overwhelming.

“It is (an) incredibly complex marketplace to navigate.”

Farmer buy-in

Some farmers are longtime participants in these programs. Paul Overby, who farms near Wolford, N.D., has partnered with General Mills on a regenerative oats program since 2018.

The education in the program, from agronomists and other soil health experts, has changed Overby’s approach to farming.

He spoke at the Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association Regenerative Agriculture conference last November in Brandon.

In a PowerPoint presentation, Overby summed up his new approach to crop production. Previously, he worried about price, weather, labour and risk management. Now, he thinks about less fertilizer, fewer pesticides, carbon in the soil, habitat for insects and birds, and zone mapping.

Overby believes zone-mapping fields is critical for regenerative ag because certain parts of a field are not profitable and should be taken out of crop production.

He now employs a complex crop rotation, growing canola, sunflowers, oats, soybeans, field peas, spring wheat, millet and flax. He’s also experimenting with less nitrogen or zero application of phosphate for certain crops in the rotation.

The goal is to make the plants “do some of the work” and find nutrients in the soil.

Overby firmly supports regenerative concepts, but he’s unsure about financial incentives. Giving people money isn’t a great way to change behaviour, he notes, pointing to a USDA program that paid growers to plant cover crops.

“As soon as the funding quit, they (some farmers) quit. They learned nothing out of it … they simply took advantage (of) the payment.”

If governments, corporations and environmental groups want to achieve change on the landscape, education and incentives are both needed, and preferably farmer-to-farmer education, Overby says.

Cash payments alone don’t change habits.

“It’s a transactional thing, not a transformation.”

More than a decade ago, Canada’s organic industry launched a program called the Organic Advantage: Transition to Higher Profits.

It argued that organic grain farmers make more money.

“Field crop producers who transition from conventional to organic production are rewarded with increased profitability,” an Organic Advantage fact sheet says.

The program had a short-term impact on the Prairies. From 2015 to 2018, acreage of organic field crops increased 49 per cent, says the Prairie Organic Development Fund.

The increase didn’t last.

Canola prices rocketed upward in 2021, hitting $20 per bushel, and many growers abandoned organic crop production.

From 2018 to 2022, the number of farmers and organic acres in Western Canada likely dropped, but it’s difficult to nail down the size of the decline. Canada’s organic sector has poor data collection and releases statistics that are two or three years out of date.

“But we lost a lot of acres … which suggests to me that some organic guys have let some of their organics land go. And they are growing canola on the side,” Laura Telford, an organic specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, said in 2023.

The organic example suggests that economics and incentives can have an impact but if farmers don’t believe in the practices, the change will be temporary.

Top down versus grass roots

Ryan Boyd, who farms near Forrest, Man., has attended most of the regenerative ag conferences in Brandon since the event began in 2018.

He’s a Nuffield scholar, has studied grazing systems around the globe and is a firm believer in practices that enhance soil health.

A top-down approach to encourage regenerative farming, where farmers are paid for certain practices or outcomes, may not succeed, he says.

“I don’t think the financial incentives will be able to flow adequately from the top down,” he said, as he stood outside the main hall at the conference.

“I hope it does. The problem is, are you incentivizing the right things? Is it going to accomplish what we’re hoping it (does)? Is it actually going to make a difference?”

There’s also the larger truth, which humans have been dealing with for thousands of years: change is hard.

For much of the last 15 years, grain farming has been profitable in Western Canada. Not every year, but growing canola, wheat, pulses and oats has generated profits and sometimes very healthy profits.

That’s why farmland prices have risen dramatically over the last 15-20 years, jumping 300-500 per cent on the Prairies.

“What affects farmland values is the profitability of the farmers …. It all boils down to profitability,” says Ted Cawkwell, a real estate agent specializing in farmland, who runs the Cawkwell Group in Saskatoon.

With the massive jump in land prices and farmers making money, they have enjoyed a long period of prosperity.

Asking a grower to include five crops in the rotation, plant a cover crop in the fall or bring cattle back to the farm is a difficult sales pitch when the status quo is working.

“Fertilizers work, chemicals work … The reality is, we can’t compete with the energy density of fertilizer,” Boyd says.

“You can’t jam enough energy in a cover crop, in one year, to compete with the results of 120 pounds of nitrogen.”

Boyd probably missed out on some years of big profits from grain production because he raises cattle and has perennial forages on his mixed farm.

He’s focused on stable profits, while farming the way he wants to farm.

“We can’t get to where we want to go if we’re not profitable …. What’s the quote? You can’t be green if you’re in the red.”

One of the challenges with organic farming is it can create an “us” versus “them” narrative. “We” don’t use pesticides and “they” do. Or “they” are growing weeds that spread to neighbouring farms.

There is a risk that climate-smart agriculture will follow the same path, where it becomes divisive within the farm community.

Overby is active on X (formerly Twitter) and he’s aware that some words are explosive. If he mentions the word “regenerative,” it can trigger a response.

“I’ll get some smart-aleck comment. ‘Why do we have to divide farmers into regenerative ag farmers or whatever. Farmers are farmers’,” he said. “People don’t like that concept of being labelled by the practices. They don’t want to be called a ‘climate-smart’ farmer.”

The political divide over climate and agriculture has become a major policy issue in America.

In the U.S. debate continues over the next U.S. farm bill. The newly installed Trump administration is cutting support for climate-smart ag programs introduced under the Biden administration. However, the political combat in Washington is a long way from Boyd’s farm north of Brandon. For him, this issue comes down to personal choice.

If someone wants to grow forage crops and bring cattle back to the farm, that’s up to them. If someone else wants to grow canola and maximize profits, that’s up to them, he says.

The post Prairie farmers have mixed views of sustainable agriculture push appeared first on Grainews.

That was the main message from soil scientist and conservationist Ray Archuleta at the Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association conference in Regina in February.

“Regenerative farming is a mind shift,” said Archuleta, who farms in Missouri.

“If we learn how to emulate and mimic nature and work with it, not only does nature benefit, but we benefit financially and economically.”

The first step in making that shift happen is simply understanding that the soil is alive, Archuleta said — a concept he doesn’t believe the majority of farmers understand or appreciate.

“Fifty per cent of all biodiversity is in the soil. It is elegant. It’s complex. Once you start to embrace that and really believe it, the way you manage the ranch, the farm completely changes.”

The concept of regenerative agriculture has become a lot more mainstream in recent years, and there is evidence that Canadian farmers have adopted practices in line with the concept in recent decades. For example, about 60 per cent of Canadian farmers report using no-till or conservation tillage methods — in Saskatchewan that number increases to 80 per cent — while a growing number are interested in renewable energy production.

However, there are still many economic and practical barriers to adopting practices generally associated with regenerative agriculture for large-scale farms, which include not only no-till or conservation tillage but also cover cropping, managed grazing, composting and strategic crop rotations.

Archuleta said he used to be one of the farmers who didn’t see value in putting in the time and effort to adopt these practices. That changed when he was in his 40s, working in Oregon and living in Idaho, both major agricultural states.

“I couldn’t understand why you couldn’t make a living, two families couldn’t make a living on 500 prime acres of irrigated agriculture,” he said, adding he also began taking note of the state of soil health across the country.

“We have been working 90 years on trying to stop wind erosion and water erosion, and it’s still the number one water quality issue in the country. And we supposedly have some of the best universities in the world.”

That prompted him to question modern farming practices and the role of science in shaping them.

“You have to be very careful with science because you might not be asking the right questions. The question should have always been, ‘How do we have relationship with the natural system, and how do we emulate our farming to look more like nature?’ You’re approaching nature with the wrong paradigm. It didn’t work.”

However, although Archuleta now travels the world as an advocate for regenerative agriculture, he says his focus isn’t on convincing farmers to change their minds on the concept.

“I used to be the same way,” he says.

“Don’t think you’re going to convince people.”

He says instead he’s focused on working with the small minority of farmers who have already adopted a regenerative agriculture mindset and are practising it on their farms.

“Until we reach 13.5 per cent, we’re not going to get a complete conversion of the other system. The others will come later. I’m here to work with those that are walking this journey. They’re tired of being broke, they’re tired of the margins. They know this is not working.”

However, despite the numbers, he said he’s still hopeful that regenerative agriculture will become a common practice for farmers and a solution for many of our climate problems.

He also believes that there could be positive developments in this area in the United States in the near future, particularly now that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been confirmed as health secretary.

“Mr. Kennedy understands regenerative agriculture. He understands the two parts of the coin of health, the soil and food. So, there could be some changes on the horizon.”

He also believes that changes in the U.S. could have a direct impact on Canadian agriculture.

“Canada’s intimately linked to us. We need Canada, and Canada needs us. I hope it’s a trickle effect. The trickle effect is already happening.”

However, regardless of potential government action, Archuleta said he believes that we are going to need to have a major shift in how we produce food in the future.

“If the population is going to diminish in the next 50 to 100 years, what are you going to do with all that grain that we’re growing? Agriculture is going to have to shift. Our farms are too big, and people don’t want to hear that. The future is not about quantity, it’s about quality.”

He also said he’s hopeful this shift will come from farmers themselves.

“It always starts small, and it all starts from the bottom up, not from the government down. Great movements that change the world start from the bottom up.”

The post Regenerative agriculture requires change, but there are benefits appeared first on Grainews.

“We believe farming isn’t just about growing crops and raising cows, it’s about working with the land and leveraging its unique assets,” said Walker at the Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association conference in Regina in mid-February.

“It was also about working with what we had,” he said, adding their farmland stretches out from a river and ranges from pastureland with low productivity to high-producing cropland.

“Our infrastructure and land base naturally lends itself to overlapping land use, allowing us to integrate not just land, but also equipment, labour, buildings, grain storage, cash and even credit facilities.”

He says they decided to integrate cattle to provide a natural cycle of regeneration, and he believes they have been successful in this and have achieved numerous other benefits.

For example, winter grazing has cut back on the need for costly infrastructure.

“We winter our cows on grain land, letting them graze on forage crop residue and cover crops. If you look down from above, a fenced quarter section resembles a feedlot pen without the cost and without the additional cost of hauling out manure and building fences, putting the biomass where you want it and especially focusing on those lighter areas of the soil.”

There are also benefits to fall grazing, he says, which uses grass, trees and cover crops, cleans up the tree rows and processes crop residue.

He says the cattle have also replaced some farm equipment, serving as bale processors, manure spreaders, stubble digesters and heavy harrows.

Ten years in, they are also seeing residual benefits in their fields, including increased biomass and better water retention and nutrient cycling.

Walker says they’ve also achieved their goals of maximizing land use.

“Not every acre should be seeded to cash crops. Some land is better suited for grazing, and cattle allow us to turn these acres into productive assets instead of economic burdens.”

For example, he says the farm previously had a 200-acre piece of high-saline land located within high-producing grainland, which they tilled and sprayed heavily each year. With the cattle integration, they changed their strategy, drilling perennial seed mix into the land with saline tolerant plants.

“The weeds came back initially, but we cut and baled it for three years, sometimes leaving it for fall grazing. Today, less than 10 per cent of that area has kochia and foxtail. This year, we harvested over 450 bales from that land, and the soil is coming back into balance.”

Beyond the benefits to the land, Walker says there have also been economic benefits, although those are harder to quantify.

“Very simply, we’re reducing our synthetic fertilizer inputs significantly,” he says.

“The cattle will also utilize all the things that would no longer get utilized, like the grass and the trees in the sloughs, any of the feed that isn’t human consumption.”

However, despite all the benefits the change has brought, Walker warns there was also a steep learning curve.

“Cattle can provide a natural cycle of regeneration, but only when managed properly.”

For his farm, proper management began with an honest assessment of the challenges and economic, agronomic and environmental opportunities that comes with new practices. He advises other producers thinking of making changes to do the same.

But overall, he believes long-term investments in regenerative practices will pay off in dividends if executed properly.

“Focusing on agronomics, economics and quality of life presents significant challenges but also offers incredible opportunities for growth and improvement,” he said.

“Every generation before us has had to adapt, evolve and innovate. We are no different. That’s why, on our farm, our vision statement reads to transform people, to innovate and regenerate agriculture.”

The post Saskatchewan grain farmer sees benefits of integrating cattle appeared first on Grainews.

The university set out to compare the performance of forage and annual blends under a planned grazing system.

Study co-author Jourdyn Sammons presented results during an Ag in Motion rotational grazing lunch and learn July 17, hosted by the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association.

Researchers measured the performance of four different blends, grazed by yearling steers in 5.7-hectare paddocks over two years at the Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence near Clavet, Sask. One annual blend included forage brassica, 4010 peas and barley, while the other included fall rye and clover. Two perennial blends were also tested, including a hybrid bromegrass and alfalfa blend, and a mix of sainfoin and meadow bromegrass.

Researchers also measured the enteric methane emitted by the steers on the various blends. The study also looked into soil health metrics, although those results were still being analyzed.

The study highlighted different potential advantages across the blends.

The hybrid bromegrass and alfalfa treatment consistently produced high biomass and provided adequate nutrition. Steers gained well on it, making it profitable, as long as the producer has time to establish perennial stands.

For producers needing a “quicker turnaround,” the barley, pea and brassica also grew plenty of biomass, topping production from the sainfoin and meadow bromegrass blend.

Sammons expected the sainfoin and meadow bromegrass to produce the least methane, due chemical compounds in the sainfoin. Again, however, the barley, pea and brassica blend beat it out, coming in with the lowest emissions in the study.

Steers grazing the fall rye and clover blend had the best average daily gains, but the “yield wasn’t adequate to provide enough forage for a produce,” Sammons said in an interview.

“I wouldn’t say it would be a profitable investment even though it did produce the high-quality forage for a period of time.”

Those results could be due to how they handled fall rye. Although fall rye is typically seeded in the fall, overwintered and grazed in the second year of growth, U of Sask researchers seeded their fall rye in the spring. As it was grazed while still immature, it didn’t yield as well as they’d have liked.

“The steers did really well on it, but they were only on there for a short amount of time.”

The annual blends also had more shallow moisture, which Sammons said they weren’t expecting. “Typically, you would expect that your perennials would have more moisture continuously, but I think the biggest difference is that because the perennials are growing all year long — although they’re dormant in the winter — there’s more continued growth.”

Annuals, on the other hand, are seeded mid-spring, grazed and then quite likely “toast” right after grazing, she said.

“I think because of that and the continuous pull of the perennials, that’s why we’re seeing the increased levels of moisture in the shallow levels of the soil. But the flip side of that is because of the deeper rooting systems, because of the more complex tap roots that our perennials may possess there, they are able to utilize that moisture and they are able to access the moisture.”

Although the annuals had more shallow moisture, “perennials have way more yield because they can access the moisture.”

The post From AIM: Perennial and annual grazing mixes go head-to-head appeared first on Grainews.

Yes, there are cattle and crops, but they’re just part of a diversified farming operation that includes a wide range of practices aimed at reducing the farm’s environmental footprint, improving animal welfare, increasing biological biodiversity, improving soil health and increasing public awareness of sustainable farming practices.

His efforts to develop Ferme Guayclair Inc. with a holistic farming approach earned him recognition in 2022 as the Quebec Cattle Producer’s Environmental Stewardship Award recipient. Ferme Guayclair is located at Brownsburg-Chatham, about 100 km northwest of Montreal.

“As I began farming, I wanted to do things differently than everyone else,” says Stéphane, who started out with a dairy farm and cash crops in 2004 before transitioning to the beef/cash crop operation in 2019. His approach is to apply a wide range of livestock and crop management practices that complement each other and benefit the environment.

From dairy production to beef

Stéphane runs an 85-head crossbred cow-calf operation, with all calves finished on the farm, processed at a local federally inspected abattoir, and the beef marketed through an on-farm retail outlet and farmers markets.

The cattle spend most of their year in an intensively managed rotational grazing system that begins with calving on pasture in late May and June and continues with grazing a wide range of perennial and annual forages and crop residue right through to mid- to late December “maybe someday, even into January,” before being moved indoors for the remainder of the winter feeding program.

That beef management program is a departure from a more common practice of feeding beef animals indoors and/or in a feedyard. “Again, I wanted to do something different,” Stéphane says. “I believe it is better for the animals if they can be out on pasture. I like seeing them out on pasture and so many people who come by the farm like to see them out as well.” Also, running cattle on pasture for about seven months of the year is a much more efficient way of returning nutrients to the soil.

Stéphane produces about 217 acres of annual cash crops, including corn, soybeans and wheat. There are about 52 acres of perennial pasture, another 37 acres of annual pasture and 96 acres of hayland. He’s adopted a regenerative agriculture approach. Key elements involve zero-till cropping practices, increasing plant biodiversity and working to keep some type of crop or vegetative material green and growing on the soil at all times right up until freeze-up.

Hay and pastureland are seeded to perennial forages. He uses several different crop species for annual pasture as well as for intercropping and cover cropping.

The 37 acres of annual pasture are seeded to two different blends. About half the area is seeded to a cover crop blend that includes, oats, peas, sun hemp, sunflower, crimson clover, lablab (a forage legume that grows similar to sweet pea) and radish.

“Everything in the blend has a purpose,” says Stéphane . “There are several different rooting structures, there are legumes to feed the soil, and flowering species that benefit pollinators and they all produce feed for cattle.”

The other half of the annual pasture is seeded to a blend, often just the leftovers from the spring seeding operations. That could include a combination of soybeans, corn, oats, and wheat.

“I am just learning as I go and there isn’t a lot of research, so I try different combinations, run my own trials to see what might work,” he says.

Keep the ground covered

Cover crops fit into the program as wheat and soybeans are harvested. As the wheat is combined in August, Stéphane seeds a similar seven-species forage blend as he used in the first annual pasture mix, but also adds some pearl millet. Since soybeans are harvested a bit later, he is looking for cover crops that are faster growing and can also fix nitrogen (those soybean acres will be seeded to corn and wheat the following season). The cover crop following soybeans can include peas, clover, hairy vetch and oats.

On the corn acres, he uses an intercrop blend. After the corn is seeded on 30-inch rows and established, he comes back when the corn is at the four- to five-leaf stage and seeds a blend of crimson clover, annual ryegrass and tillage radish between the corn rows.

“The idea is to keep something green and growing on these acres right through to the end of the growing season,” Stéphane says. “Above ground, these crops are producing feed for cattle and below ground they are feeding the soil microbes, helping to build the soil.” While his earlier farming practices included tillage, soil organic matter declined. Since he switched to zero till soil, organic matter is beginning to rebuild.

The cows calve on pasture in late May and June, with the rotational grazing season usually starting on permanent pasture around June 1. Depending on the growing season, the cow herd is moved into new grazing, usually every day. Stéphane actually manages two grazing herds. The cow-calf pairs move through pastures first, while the herd of yearlings follow behind about 30 days later.

“The actual move interval depends on the animals and the growing conditions,” says Stéphane.”I want to make sure forages have a chance to recover before they are grazed again.” Depending on the growing season cattle may move through the rotation three or four times during the year.

The basic grazing plan is to start on the perennial pastures, move into the annual pastures later in the summer, and then the cover crop and intercrop seedings in the fall. Hopefully, the forage supply will allow cattle to remain on pasture until at least late December.

While the business of Ferme Guayclair is to be a profitable operation to produce crops and beef, Stéphane says the broader, long-term plan is to improve soil health and to benefit the environment. “It is a whole systems approach,” he says. “It is a circle — each aspect of the farming operation works with and benefits another.”

With several conservation measures being applied, Stéphane wants the farm to become carbon neutral within the next three years, thereby making a difference in the drive towards more sustainable agriculture.

The post All efforts geared toward sustainable beef and crop production appeared first on Grainews.