There are on-farm environmental improvements which require little time or money but make a big difference, says a Vermilion, AB farmer
At some point about 15 years ago, Glen Smith walked out to a corral on his cow/calf and mixed farm operation near Vermilion and thought, "There has to be a better way to do this."
Tired of what he saw as the time-consuming, resource depleting process of wintering cattle in corrals, Smith made a decision to winter his cattle on pasture. He now describes that decision — one partially made out of boredom — as one of the best he's ever made.
"I don't have to start up the tractor as much to feed my cattle, which has cut down fuel consumption. I was able to expand my herd because I was no longer limited to the space available in my corrals. It also helped me adjust my calving schedule so it was more in line with my off-site job."
But perhaps more than anything, it taught him that environmentally sustainable farm practices can also carry an economic advantage, and those practices do not always involve a large amount of time or monetary investment.
Smith's decision to wean his operation off the corral was motivated by the need for a more efficient, less draining process. "I was tired of being a slave to the corralling process — the highly mechanized feeding, bringing the cattle into the corral at the first sign of frost, putting them out in the spring, bedding them, bringing bales to them. It gets old in a hurry."
Besides the heavy workload, corral wintering limited the potential of his herd. "When I was still corralling livestock, the most I could ever have was 80 cows. I can manage 300 cows easier today than 80 back then. Keeping cattle out on pasture has minimized my feed costs and reduced veterinarian and yardage costs. There's just no comparison."
The move also facilitated a beneficial change in his calving schedule. "I realized March wasn't the month to be calving. March means calving in corrals, which around here means wet. It also made sense in terms of my off-site job as an instructor for Lakeland College's agricultural science program. Because the school year ended May 1, it made sense to do my calving after that date. The system change allowed that."
Wintering site management comes with its own set of risks and challenges. One of them is watering. Smith has learned to manage the risk of technical failure by allowing his cattle limited access to dugouts. "There are times I have to allow cattle access to my dugouts — it would be too big of a risk to do otherwise," he says. "If I'm gone for three days, I give them some access to dugouts in case the waterers give out."
The cost of solar-powered waterers has been an ongoing challenge, but Smith is in the process of tackling that problem as well. "It's much less expensive to build your own," he says. "A commercial watering system can cost in excess of $2,000 — a guy can put his own together for half that cost and they'll usually work just fine."
A switch to a pasture wintering system is one example of a relatively inexpensive change in practice which carries both an economic and environmental benefit. Combined with his experiences in developing an Environmental Farm Plan (EFP), it's one that has helped Smith recognize that effective, environmentally sustainable practices do not always require a large cash outlay. So when producers challenge him in his role as a workshop facilitator for the EFP program, he is able to work with them to help illustrate the point.
"Take chemical storage, for example. I use Rubbermaid containers — the same kind you can buy at almost any hardware or big box store — to store on-farm chemicals. It's a small investment that provides secondary containment in the event of a leak or a spill."
Also, like many producers who have bought older farmsteads, Smith faced the challenge of dealing with a well that had been put in place long before he bought the land. "Because it is still a good, usable well, I had to figure out ways to prevent runoff from contaminating it. I did that by fencing it off to keep livestock away from it. It was a small change in management, but it's worked."
Although a given practice may not cost a lot of money, it may still cost a lot in terms of time and opportunity costs. One way to beat this, says Smith, is to prioritize and manage environmental improvements that need to be made. And one way to do that is to develop an EFP, a free, voluntary self-assessment of environmental strengths and weaknesses on a farm or ranch.
"An EFP helps producers identify priority items and is usually a time-efficient way of doing so," says Smith. "At the top of that list of priorities should be anything that poses a health or safety risk to your family. After that, it's a matter of looking at the practices that have a double benefit of being environmentally sustainable and profitable — some Beneficial Management Practices, or BMPs, can help producers save and sometimes even make money."
The information on this website is available for reprint with credit to "The Alberta Environmental Farm Plan, www.albertaEFP.com".
Article development courtesy of The Alberta Environmental Farm Plan Company