GrainsWest Winter 2020

Winter 2020 grainswest.com 23 one-third is reseeded perennials—cultivated land reseeded for hay or grazing—and the remainder is native pasture. Farmers in the area align their activities with the land’s designated ideal usage. UNIQUE GOVERNANCE Eight decades after the creation of the Special Areas, governance remains different from other Alberta rural areas. Rural residents do not elect councillors for municipal districts. Rather, the region is governed by an advisory council comprised of elected representatives from each of 13 sub- districts. The council provides input to a four-person board that deals with day-to-day governance. Some residents question whether special governance is still needed and the issue has been reviewed in recent years. “Redford and Prentice [provincial governments] looked at the governance model and asked, ‘Does it still make sense?’ They decided there would be no changes,” said Christianson. A descendent of area farmers who arrived over a century ago, Christianson sees value in the governance model. “This form of government does make sense out here because of the dynamic between the public lands and the ranch and farm units and how things are set up here. The anomaly is that public land here is managed at a local level and that speaks to the success of the Special Areas.” Perhaps the model works because the people governing it are local farmers and ranchers. “There’s so much time and history on the landscape,” said Christianson. “Intuitively, there’s a feel what’s going to work on a particular piece of land.” FARMING THE SPECIAL AREAS The soil on Liz and Fred Roberts’s farm is the shade of brown indicative of low organic matter and poor moisture retention. Compared to soils elsewhere in the province, it also takes longer to recover from compaction and other impacts. Special Areas farmers know succeeding with poorer soils requires a longer planning horizon and an acceptance that drought will be a regular visitor. Maintaining soil health is critical. Now cropped with wheat, oats, barley, canola and field peas, the farm has been in Fred’s family for 104 years. What separates Special Areas farmers from those elsewhere in the province? “Patience, maybe,” said Fred with a laugh. Liz concurred: “You can’t farm from year to year. You have to have a long-range outlook in terms of finances. If you have a good harvest one year, you don’t spend all your money, you put some aside whether it’s in dollars or seed so you have some means of getting through the next year because it could be a drought year.” Fred’s grandfather, who homesteaded the land, kept the farm going through the Great Depression with his First World War pension. For a period of time, both Liz and Fred worked off the farm to keep it going. With improvements they’ve made in soil health, the farm now sustains the family. Their three adult children have moved away but all are landowners and help operate the farm. Crop rotation has been critical to their success. “You might rotate over six years within a field,” said Liz. What works on the Roberts’s farm is two years of cereals followed by peas, cereals, canola and cereals. The cereal component can be oats, barley or wheat, depending on their economic needs and market demand. Different plants have different root zones. Going to a rotation, you take disease down and utilize different layers of soil.” While they may have left land fallow in previous years, they now work it more intensively even with dry conditions. “In the last five years, we’ve gone through continuous cropping, which seems to be working. Three of those five years have been drought years and we’re still getting decent crops. Farming practices in general have changed enough it seems to be working for us,” said Fred. LISTENING TO THE SOIL Scientists at the Chinook Applied Research Association (CARA) are helping Special Areas farmers wring the most out of these stingy soils while improving their general health. Founded in 1979, CARA was the province’s first broad based applied research organization that conducted crop, forage, conservation and extension projects. It was one of 12 groups that formed the Agricultural Research and Extension Council of Alberta (ARECA). Though the original 12 ARECA members continue to work together on farm initiatives and advocacy, CARA and five other organizations recently left to create the informal FarmRite group. These six partners now focus on advocacy and collaborative partnerships. “The anomaly is that public land here is managed at a local level and that speaks to the success of the Special Areas.” —Jordon Christianson