The Environmental Farm Plan is a key building block for Prairie Heritage Beef, says Christoph Weder.
Up in Alberta's the Peace Country, about an hour north of Grand Prairie where the Peace River meanders close to the Spirit River, Christoph Weder and family view the business of beef from a unique vantage point.
It's one that blends pristine geography with hard earned ranching know how, staunch family values, a 'pay it forward' attitude and a focused entrepreneurial drive that would hold up among the best in the high rises of downtown Edmonton or Calgary.
The Weders are a success story for achieving a lifestyle and business approach that fit well together. Not only does the family enjoy life on the open range and the freedom to make a livelihood on their own terms, they have forged a unique and expanding business alliance as founders of the Prairie Heritage Beef group, a partnership of western Canadian ranching families who market a premium beef brand across the country and internationally.
For Christoph Weder, there's a critical ingredient that binds the family's personal and business values together – a strong focus on environmental stewardship. This, he says, is the foundation of the success of his operation. It's also, he believes, an increasingly important role and opportunity for all Canadian beef producers.
"We have a philosophy that we're basically caretakers of the land," says Weder. "Everything flows from that. We produce beef and we want to do well at it, but we know that doesn't happen the way we want it to without taking care of the land first.
"We've always felt, like the saying goes, that we're borrowing the land from our future generations. We know the most important job we're really doing is managing resources so our next generations have something decent to work with."
What separates Weder from the pack and makes his viewpoints more than platitudes is that he has hung his hat firmly on this approach. It's not just a nice outlook. It's what he's living every day and what he and his partners are banking on.
In addition to operating the ranch, , which includes 500 breeding cows and an equivalent number of yearlings, Weder travels across the country and internationally as part of his role handling marketing and sales for Prairie Heritage. He is also an active writer, farm consultant and speaker who preaches what he practices. It's a busy life but one he relishes. "There's nothing else I'd rather be doing," he says.
Weder's operation, Spirit View Ranch, and others across Alberta and B.C. he has partnered with under Prairie Heritage Beef, stand as examples of how environmental stewardship can benefit a beef operation, both from production and marketing perspectives. A key component of his approach, he says, is the Environmental Farm Plan (EFP) process, which his operation has used as a template.
The EFP is a tool available in Alberta and other provinces that farmers and ranchers can use to assess and improve their environmental stewardship, at a direction and pace they choose themselves.
"My wife, Erika, was the one who really saw the potential in EFP," says Weder. Through her efforts we were the first producer in Peace Country to get an EFP done back in 2004. That was one of the best moves we ever made. It provided the roadmap for making sure our operation was well run from an environmental perspective, and that has been the core of our business approach."
A few of the key approaches implemented included cross-fencing for better grazing management, turning major riparian areas into their own designated grazing cell to better protect them, and using pasture pipelines and corral-free feeding to limit cattle impact on the land.
They also fenced off all native bush habitat. In addition to supporting conservation and providing a natural wildlife corridor, this serves double duty as a shelterbelt that provides cattle with refuge from windstorms in the winter. Weder and crew also built berms to slow down runoff in the spring and hold back areas where there might be some manure runoff. "Simple stuff that just makes sense," says Weder.
Continual improvement is the focus of Spirit View Ranch and that means keeping an updated EFP and always looking for new opportunities to get better. "We're not doing it for a pat on the back. An EFP is one of the best things a beef producer can do to improve their operation and improve their product. That's what we're interested in."
Many of the specific upgrades and practice improvements the Weders implemented through their involvement with EFP were things they planned to do regardless, but the EFP process provided a "whole farm" thorough, methodical process to direct their planning and help ensure all opportunities were considered. An EFP is also a recognized program that producers can point to with customers and others, as assurance they are operating in an environmentally responsible way.
Prairie Heritage Beef mandates that all producers involved have an EFP and Weder believes this attribute has rising currency with beef buyers.
"We see ourselves producing 'Cadillac beef.' When you're in the premium market game, the more good standards and attributes you can tie to your product the better you are positioned."
"We're finding the same customers who want no hormones, no antibiotics also want to know the environment is being taken care of. I expect this is also becoming more important for beef customers in general as there's more focus on the environment all the time."
While he wants to produce Cadillac beef, Weder says he doesn't need – or want – what many view as "the five star Cadillac Escalade lifestyle" with all the bells and whistles typically associated with business success.
"Everyone has their own values. For us, the ability to live out here and make a good living ranching in a way we can take pride in is all the reward."
At a basic level, the most tangible benefits are simple ones that make themselves evident everyday, he says.
"For many of the ranchers I know, it's just kind of nice to go into your pasture and see its got sedges and willows growing on the edges, a few deer passing by and ducks flying through, as opposed to one that's been beat up all around. You can't put a price tag on that. That to me is the country version of a true five-star lifestyle."