Grainswest - Fall 2021

Fall 2021 Grains West 32 Gowriluk noted significant hesitation among respondents in the area of cover cropping. Though a quarter of them had tried cover crops, few had success. She speculated two possible reasons could be lack of adequate moisture and a narrow post-harvest planting window. Some farmers felt they should be incentivized to adopt these practices. In contrast to cover cropping, most farmers said they are well ahead in the adoption of beneficial nutrient management practices. Those who haven’t adopted the 4R Nutrient Stewardship program cited equipment upgrade costs. Branden Leslie, GGC manager of policy and government relations, said this could be due to a knowledge gap about the 4R program. Fertilizer Canada and other industry partners are hard at work to remedy this, he added. Given the variability in soil type, acreage and existing equipment on individual farms, it is difficult to determine how much the average farmer would need to invest to adopt 4R management strategies, said Leslie. “If upon soil testing, a grower realizes there is a mixture of nutrients required on various pieces of land they own, that grower may not have an air seeder set up to deliver the required nutrients, and may need to make alterations or upgrades to their equipment in order to do so,” he said. “There are also, of course, some farmers who are using quite old equipment that really won’t meet the needs of certain types of product application.” He did point out, though, that farmers have been offered significant support for cost-shared agronomic advice, which could help them to better determine the needed investment, if any, they would require. Gowriluk is annoyed farmers were excluded from the conversation when these policies and funding opportunities were developed. The federal government did reach out to Under the Agricultural Climate Solutions initiative, possible greenhouse gas mitigation projects include nutrient management and feed strategies, the latter of which is most relevant to the livestock sector. FEATURE