“The project is born out of similar initiatives that started in the United States, Alberta and then Saskatchewan. They have developed these tools for assessing rangeland health, looking at various indicators like bare soil, litter cover, soil stability, presence and abundance of obnoxious weeds and the successional status of the plant community,” said Mae Elsinger, range management biologist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC).

Traditionally, rangelands have been assessed based on the successional status or the plant species composition of the community. But, Elsinger says that did not provide a clear enough picture.

“You might have a poor species composition, but you have an abundance of productivity, very good ground cover, you don’t have any weeds and the ecosystem is functioning. It is capturing water, producing forage for wildlife and livestock. It is intercepting nutrients, capturing sunlight, all of those ecological functions. So, just species composition was inadequate,” Elsinger said.

Assessment potential

The assessment will be a customized workbook that will allow users to compare the current plant community to the potential community that could exist on the site.

It will have the ability to provide users with an inkling as to what their land may be capable of in health and function, allowing them to make better management decisions or modifying management practices.

“What it can do is allow people to compare what they have now for a range or pasture to what the potential is and that gives them a sense of what adjustments they could make to achieve a higher productivity or deliver a better level of ecological goods and services,” Elsinger said.

Manitoba will be looking to Alberta and Saskatchewan’s current assessment methods as a reference in creating a version specific to Manitoba’s climate, geography and plant species.

“We are intending to make this specific for Manitoba, given that we have different environmental conditions than Saskatchewan and Alberta and we also have different plant species here too, as we have a different set of warm-season grasses that normally don’t show up in Alberta and Saskatchewan,” Elsinger said.

The initiative will see the development of a rangeland plant community guide, which will describe current and potential rangeland plant communities for Manitoba’s four key eco sites – sand, moist, dune and loam.

An eco site map and spatial dataset will be published, which will show where a user can expect to find the different eco sites that are defined by soil texture, geological origin, salinity, slope and drainage.

The tool will help land users and producers to determine potential plant community composition, forage production, stocking rates and the impacts of management practices on ecological functions.

The project has been funded through Growing Forward 2 and is operated by a well-rounded steering committee, which includes Jane Thornton and Bill Gardiner from Manitoba Agriculture, Chris Friesen with Manitoba Sustainable Development, Rebekah Neufeld with Nature Conservancy Canada, Terence McGonigle with Brandon University, Duncan Morrison and Chris Yuzdepski from Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association, Mae Elsinger, Bev Dunlop and Kerry LaForge from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and Jeff Thorpe with the Saskatchewan Research Council.

Stakeholder workshop

A number of individuals from a wide range of sectors was brought together in November for a one-day workshop to determine what this tool should look like and how stakeholders should move forward with the project.

“We discussed what these stakeholders think an assessment for rangeland and pastures should look like in Manitoba and what the indicators should be. We developed a very good list of indicators and took a look at the other variety of ways that health is being assessed on grasslands and pastures,” Elsinger said.

The workshop allowed stakeholders to learn about various ecosystem health assessments and allow them to provide input into what indicators could be used for assessment methods in Manitoba.

“What surprised me was that whether these stakeholders came from a conservation background or livestock productivity background, it seemed like we all agreed on what some of the most important indicators would be. That was very exciting for me to see,” Elsinger said

Elsinger says the timeline to complete the assessment depends heavily on funding, but once complete the tools will be made available to the public on the Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association website.

“The timeline is dependent of funding opportunities. We have been trying to do this since 2010 and it has gone very slowly. We could probably have this completed by 2020 but the two limiting factors are the funding, and the amount of time people have to work on it,” Elsinger said.

For more information visit the MFGA website.

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Benjamin Hamm, farm management specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, says that’s the only thing that comes to mind when he looks at the market.

“In 2015 we had some crazy highs, up to $3.75 and even a few spikes to up to $4 a pound,” Hamm said. “If anyone has been watching the market, the market fundamentals sure have changed in the past few months. They are significantly off of what they were in the past two years, so a little bit challenging for a lot of producers to get used to.”

Hamm says that 2016 did start off with relatively high values but prices have been dropping every week.

“There have been some significant swings. We had awesome profitability in the cow-calf sector and backgrounders were definitely making some money in 2014 and 2015. But now we are seeing prices moving and are at a low of $170 on steer prices,” Hamm said.

According to Hamm, prices spiked close to $270 for the 800-pound steers, but now appear to be on a down cycle.

“Typically we see about two or three years of profitability and then a few years of not-so-great profit and then a few more years of profitability,” Hamm said. “2014 and 2015 held great profitability and amazing returns, which was good to see, but now we are in a different position.”

For 2016, Hamm expects to remain on the positive side, just not as positive as the past two years.

“We should still be about $100 above covering operating and labour on the cow-calf side. Backgrounding, a little bit more volatility. We did definitely see profitability in 2014, some profitability in 2015, but we are definitely having some losses on the backgrounding side and predicting to have some more in the future here,” Hamm said. “The longer you feed the calf the more risk you are exposed to and if you did buy on the high end and selling them out at a lower price. The math just doesn’t add up and we are seeing some significant losses.”

Cattle numbers

Hamm reports the beef cow herd in Canada sits at about 3.8 million head, with Manitoba holding about 11.5 per cent of the nation’s total at approximately 440,000 head.

“That number is significantly down from the highs we did see in 2003. Our numbers peaked in 2003 and 2004. And in 2004 and 2005, we were expecting expansion with the pricing and the profitability in the cow-calf and backgrounding side, yet we didn’t see it,” Hamm said. “I guess producers were skeptical that prices wouldn’t last too long and they definitely didn’t.”

Alberta continues to hold the majority of the national herd at 1.56 million, about 41 per cent.

The U.S. beef cow inventory sits about 10 times Canada’s at 30 million head of beef cows and Hamm reports that they did see some expansion in 2015 and 2016.

Some had predicted that Manitoba may see some expansion in 2016, but that did not come to fruition.

“We did think we might see some expansion in 2016. But all we did was cull more. So, we did some good production practices, it just didn’t help with the herd expansion in Manitoba,” Hamm said.

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“The livestock’s biological clock is regulated by light striking the pituitary gland in the middle of the brain. A lack of light depresses metabolism and causes increased melatonin output. We see this effect in the shorter days of winter,” said Andrew Hannon, lighting solution specialist with Agrilight Inc., an expert lighting company that specializes in livestock barns and agricultural buildings.

Research has shown that a well-lit barn can both boost your bottom line by reducing energy costs and increase milk production.

“The benefits of proper barn lighting are that we can simulate and achieve a natural rhythm for the livestock in the barn. We want to manipulate that day, night rhythm,” Hannon said.

Research

Independent research on the effects of lighting on dairy cattle began in 1978 at Michigan State University where researchers placed one group of dairy cows into 16 hours of light, followed by an eight-hour period of darkness and another group that was left at a natural light period during calving.

“The study was conducted between September and March and it took place over the first 100 days postpartum. Cows on a long day regime produced two litres per day more milk than those on the natural photoperiod,” Hannon said.

At 100 days the treatments were switched. The cows previously on a natural photoperiod increased in milk production when brought in to the long day light, where those that were on the supplemented lighting decreased their milk yield.

“The results suggested that exposure to long day lighting increases milk yield and it does so across the production level,” Hannon said.

Since this initial study, a number of similar studies have been conducted in North America and Europe and the response has been confirmed, the correct light intensity and duration have positive effects on the health, fertility, welfare and productivity of dairy cattle.

Researchers have found that light impacts hormone levels in cows and can increase milk productivity by 15 per cent.

“Based on those studies, the recommended long day lighting for both milking cows and growing heifers is a light intensity of 150 to 200 lux over a 16-hour period, followed by an eight-hour dark period with a light intensity less than 50 lux.”

This lighting equation simulates long summer days, the days the cow is naturally the most active, resulting in higher yields and higher feed intake.

“With that increase in feed intake and an adequate rest period, that long day lighting provides, the overall health of the cow is usually improved as it is less stressed, which in turn also helps improve fertility,” Hannon said.

What to consider

When looking at your facility and its lighting, there are a few things to take into account. Is the interior of the barn a reflective material? Plywood or concrete may require more lighting. As well, different areas of the barn require different light intensity.

“Veterinarian areas require very intense light levels because of the inspection required, whereas your feed alleys and sleeping pack areas require less intense light,” Hannon said.

When positioning lighting it is best to watch for posts, beams or anything that may cast irritating shadows.

“You do not want to put lights above ceiling fans. You will in effect create a strobe light, which is unsettling for, not just cows, but also all other livestock and people as well. Do not put lights over fans,” Hannon said.

“Other considerations that are very important are electrical considerations in general. Cows specifically are very sensitive to stray voltage and electrical noise can interfere with our RFID tag technology. So, things like grounding your electrical system become very important. It is amazing how low the voltage can be and a cow can detect that voltage. That is when you start to see cows not wanting to go to feeding troughs or other behavioural issues.”

When looking at different lighting options, Hannon says LED lights are the most popular in agricultural buildings because of the low energy use with virtually no maintenance.

“Florescent lights would be next most popular and they are very good energy consumption, efficiency-wise but have a high-maintenance factor,” Hannon said. “Then there are HID systems, which have a moderate or low efficiency on energy consumption. They are the highest burner of energy and they have a medium level of maintenance.”

Hannon also recommends light products that have damp or wet location ratings as they will last longer.

The post Creating a natural rhythm appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

According to Reynold Bergen, science director with the Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC), more of Canadian cattle producers’ checkoff dollars are being put towards research and the piece of the pie that had been allocated towards forages has also grown.

“If you look at this about 10 years ago, there were very little dollars going towards research. It was all directed towards marketing,” Bergen said. “But what we have seen over the past few years is that allocation to research has gone up and I think that is a reflection of producer interest in research and seeing some of the benefits of it.”

Bergen explains that there are a number of different groups funding research in Canada, including Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the federal and provincial governments.

“The issue is that a lot of these funders have operated just under themselves, they have focused on what they have been doing and not paid much attention to what anyone else is doing and there is very little communication between the different groups,” Bergen said.

In many cases, research initiatives had been overlapping and some of the less glamorous or more time-consuming projects have been left behind.

“So we have a situation where these funders are funding similar projects and forage researchers are fighting over nickels and dimes and not making progress,” Bergen said. “And, the beef industry was as guilty of this as anyone. If you look at where BCRC dollars went over the first seven or eight years of our existence, about 10 per cent of our funds went towards forage research and our budget was really small at that time. So, approximately, $40,000 a year was going towards forage research from us.”

Members of the forage industry explained to BCRC representatives that there was no one funding forage research or any way to collect forage checkoffs because most forage isn’t sold, but cycled into livestock operations.

“We realized that if the beef industry wants forage and forage research, it better start funding forage research,” Bergen said.

In the next round of BCRC funding, which ran from 2009 to 2013, the allotment of funds for forage research grew from 10 per cent of the BCRC budget to 20 per cent and over that five-year period $2 million was put towards forage research.

“In the current funding cycle that slice of the pie for forage got bigger again. About 30 per cent currently or $6 million out of a total $20-million budget going towards forage research,” Bergen said.

Those funding research have also become better organized with the establishment of the Science Cluster.

“The Science Cluster is an attempt to get everyone who is funding research to work together. Either by putting their dollars together or at least talking to each other about who is funding what,” Bergen said.

He adds that AAFC has also stepped up to support forage research by creating a number of new forage-related positions throughout the country.

Forage research highlights

• BCRC has funded a wide variety of research projects and other related funding commitments in recent years.
• It has funded a forage research chair at the University of Manitoba to ensure research expertise is available, funded work on optimal forage mixes and supported work on improved tame and native forage species.
• It has funded practical research on extended grazing strategies including swath, stockpiled and bale grazing, finding all have considerable economic benefits over traditional winter feeding systems, including reducing or eliminating labour, feed and manure-handling costs during the winter.
• Other key areas of research include forage establishment, cow efficiency, forage finishing, forage quality, grazing management, storing forages and weed control for forage stands.

For more information on the BCRC’s research initiatives visit, beefresearch.ca.

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“Where my livestock are is below my feet and sadly we forget that. The soil is alive, it is a collection of living organisms,” Vince, a Canadian Nuffield Scholar and fifth-generation Ontario farmer, said during a presentation at the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association’s national conference last month in Winnipeg.

• Read more: What does your underwear say about your soils?

“It is not merely that four letter word, dirt. We need to stop calling soil dirt in Canada. It is a living, breathing collection of organisms.”

Located in Merlin, Ont., Vince operates a 1,300-acre farm with his family, producing corn, soybeans and winter wheat through management practices that focus on soil health.

After years of practising no-till techniques, Vince took things a step further and began experimenting with a multi-species cover crop blend to protect and enrich his soils.

“Soil was never created with a collection of monoculture. When we think about diversity at the soil level and how soil was initially created, it wasn’t created with just four or five different species,” Vince said. “This system, using a multi-species cover crop can start to mimic how soil was created, with a collection of root exudates from each individual species.”

Vince plants an 18-species cover crop mix after his winter wheat harvest, which typically comes off in the second week of July.

“I am using about six legumes, four grasses, some broadleaf plants like sunflower, all working together to try and drive that biological activity,” Vince said. “If we drive the energy from the sun into the soil via root exudates, that is how we are going to increase soil organic matter. And, when we do this it is also capturing carbon, increasing soil health, fixing nitrogen and feeding the soil with that biodiversity.”

Once winter arrives and the cover crops start to die, Vince says it provides the added benefit of capturing snow, which recharges the soil profile.

“This is another viable tool. Instead of all of that winter precipitation ending up on the roadside ditch, or along the fencerow, it is retained in the soil,” Vince said.

While focusing on building the soil, he adds there have been numerous other benefits from the cover crops.

“You can use less nitrogen, which is money in my pocket. They completely reduce the need for tillage, wind, water or solar erosion is minimized, there is increased biological activity, and we are capturing solar energy for 12 months of the year,” Vince said. “With these cover crops we are also able to increase our water infiltration, our water-carrying capacity or drought-proofing our soil, and we are increasing our financial yield.”

When it comes to determining what to include in your cover crop mix, Vince says it is best to align yourself with an educated seed seller and focus on diversity.

“When looking at what species to use, we need to draw four quadrants. We have warm-season grass, cool-season grass, and warm-season broadleaf, cool-season broadleaf,” Vince said. “And, we need to have at least one species from each one of those quadrants and then we need to look at building out our blends from there.”

By including species from each quadrant, you will spread out your risk, as it doesn’t matter what kind of weather Mother Nature throws at you, something will grow.

“Diversity spreads out and alleviates my risk for my investment dollars,” Vince said. “Every year the blend or the final product will look different but I think that is the energy that is created with the power of diversity.”

For more information on Vince and his Nuffield Scholar report entitled, Conserving Farm Land with Cover Crops and the Importance of Biodiversity, visit the Nuffield Canada website.

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“We understand things we can see,” Vince said at the recent Canadian Forage and Grasslands conference in Winnipeg. “There is way more going on in that soil that you can only see with a microscope. We can’t see the fungi, the bacteria, the nematodes that are all in there working harmoniously.”

• Read more: Cover cropping improves land and bank balance

In order to get a better idea of what is truly going on in his soil, Vince turned to a pair of white cotton undies.

“This is a little friendly test you can do at home with very little capital invested. All you need to do is take a pair of men’s cotton underwear. Wash them first, put them in the soil and leave a little bit of the waistband exposed. It is basically a litmus test for soil biology.”

Vince says he has conducted the ‘underwear test’ on his operation. He tested a pair of underwear in both his neighbour’s conventionally tilled field and in his cover crop field for comparison.

“The underwear out of my cover crop field was badly eroded, where the pair from the conventionally tilled land was still very much intact. This is a visual indicator that there is something alive in that soil. You can see that the biological activity has basically consumed all of that cotton,” Vince said.

The idea is, the more microbes in the soil, the more they will munch on the undies. Vince suggests leaving the underwear in soil for about two months.

For more on how to conduct the underwear test and see Vince’s results in this YouTube video.

The post What does your underwear say about your soils? appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

That meeting is slated for Feb. 2 and 3 in Brandon at the Victoria Inn, and will see the organization discussing a host of issues that affect the industry’s bottom line and setting policy that will chart the future course of the industry.

Brian Lemon, MBP’s general manager, says now more than ever, younger producers are needed to take an active role in this process.

“In part we are trying to attract young producers because it will be a key component of trying to deliver on building the provincial herd. We really want to encourage young producers to show up at the AGM,” Lemon said. “We are going to hold a young producer forum, a special session where young producers can get together and they will have their own agenda.”

Agriculture policy can have a significant impact on individual operations and tends to be long lasting, according to the head of a young producers’ organization.

“Young producers need to come to these meetings because this is where the policy is being made that we will have to deal with for the next 10 to 20 years,” said Brett McRae, a fifth-generation Manitoba cattle producer and president of the Young Cattlemen’s Council (YCC). “The policy that gets voted on right now, may not materialize for a few years and we will be the ones dealing with it, so it is important that we have our say.”

McRae has been an active attendee to the MBP AGM for a number of years and says attending has a number of benefits.

“Keeping up to date with industry issues is the main reason that I go but you also have a chance to rub shoulders with some of the big players in the Manitoba beef industry and there are producers from all areas of the value chain there. So, as a cow-calf guy you can talk with a feedlot operator and gain some perspective and vice versa,” McRae said.

As president of YCC, McRae has been working with MBP to establish the event’s young producers forum.

“At YCC one of our objectives is to improve our relationship with our provincial organizations, so from that we approached MBP and are helping to organize this meeting at the AGM,” McRae said. “It is an event specifically directed to young producers. So, there will be an update from YCC, an update from the Cattlemen’s Young Leaders program and a talk on an issue that young producers are dealing with.”

As an added incentive, MBP has established a young producer mentorship offer. MBP members are encouraged to pre-register with a young producer, ages 18 to 39, and the young producer will receive a complimentary registration. The pre-registration deadline is January 5.

The theme for this year’s AGM is ‘Sharing our story’ and much of the agenda will focus on social licence and public trust.

“We need to tell our story and be proud of our story. So, that is what this will be all about. We will talk about the things that producers are doing in terms of animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and on-farm food safety,” Lemon said. “The other piece is that we really need to try and figure out how to bridge the communication between the producers of animals and the consumers of beef. We will have a number of producers come in and talk about selling beef to consumers and what it is consumers are looking for and why it is they do what they do.”

For more information visit, www.mbbeef.ca/annual-meeting/.

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It’s possible, but Juanita Kopp, a provincial livestock specialist, says producers do need to be aware of the risks and take steps to manage them.

“This is one of the topics I get a lot of questions on,” Kopp said in a recent interview. “I know that there is mouldy feeds fed every year in this province, and generally, you might not see any issues, but the biggest issue you would see, would be losses in production.”

Mould growth can reduce the value of the feed and the productivity of livestock, because it makes the feed less palatable to cattle.

“Of course, if they don’t like to eat it you are going to have reduced intake and therefore lower production and growth,” Kopp said.

As mould spores grow they also destroy the vitamins in feed, particularly vitamins A, D, E and K. Growing spores also have the chance of producing harmful mycotoxins.

“Mycotoxin production can be developed in almost any feedstuff during the growing season, harvest and during storage,” Kopp said. “Grains tend to receive the most attention but byproduct feeds, protein concentrates, finished feeds, oilseeds, wet brewers grains, food waste and forages may also contain mycotoxins.”

As the mould or fungal species grow they metabolize and produce secondary metabolites, mycotoxins. These can be extremely potent and produce effects with even low levels of exposure, Kopp said.

“Many commonly detected mycotoxins are produced in the field prior to harvest, so there is not much you can do to prevent it. But, of course storage and harvesting at the appropriate moisture, especially with silages, can help to reduce mould production,” Kopp said.

Mycotoxins can cause mycotoxin poisoning in livestock, which represses the animal’s immune system and can cause lack of response to medications and failure of vaccine programs.

“Mycotoxins may also cause diarrhea, intestinal infections, reduced production, lower fertility, lethargy and increased morbidity. It can also impact the enzymes, how they are produced and how they function,” Kopp said. “With that we can see some suppression of the immune system, which predisposes our animals to diseases and may increase milk somatic cell count when looking at dairy cows.”

Mould growth will also exacerbate dust, which if inhaled can cause fungal pneumonia. Mouldy hay also presents a problem for producers, as the mould spores can be inhaled and cause farmer’s lung.

Preventing mould

Mould requires oxygen, heat, moisture and nutrients in order to grow. Once moisture levels reach 15 per cent, mould has a chance to grow and it will grow most rapidly at the 24° to 32° mark.

“If we eliminate oxygen or moisture then we can maintain the feed for an extended period of time,” Kopp said.

If you have concerns over the level of mould in your feed, Kopp highly recommends getting a feed test in order to get a better understanding if it may be acceptable for use.

She adds, that determining if feed is still acceptable is a complex situation which requires a case-by-case analysis.

“Under 500,000 spores per gram is a relatively low count and should be acceptable for feed. When we get over a million spores per gram, that is when we start to discount the energy, so feed with caution,” Kopp said.

In most cases, the best thing to do with mouldy feed is to compost, dispose of, or dilute it with ‘clean’ feeds.

“Mixing with other ‘clean’ feed is probably the best way to go, but I would still observe the animals for any changes in behaviour,” Kopp said. “Cattle are generally less sensitive to the moulds and mycotoxins than pigs, horses and chickens because they can detoxify and transform to other metabolites that are less harmful, but they are nevertheless susceptible to the negative effects of mould and mycotoxins in feed.”

If you do plan to use contaminated feeds, Kopp says they are best fed to older replacement cattle or cows that are late in lactation.

“We want to limit the amounts of mouldy feeds to the more sensitive animals in our herd, that being pregnant cows or high-producing cattle in terms of dairy cattle, and younger calves, as they are a lot more sensitive to mould,” Kopp said.

Kopp recommends looking into the Prairie Diagnostics Service’s feed tests, which also offers mycotoxin and ergot toxin screens, or inquiring with your local Manitoba Agriculture office.

The post Managing the risks of mouldy feed appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“I suspect producers will see this take effect in 2017. But, it is hard for me to nail down an exact time that producers will start to see it reflected on their sales receipts,” said Melinda German, general manager of the Canadian Beef Check-Off Agency. “What we are targeting is that some provinces will look to implement the increase in January, while most will look to implement this in April.”

The national checkoff is currently a mandatory $1 levy Canadian beef producers pay on each head of cattle they market. The checkoff generates approximately $7.5 million annually. That amount is then divided to support marketing and promotion, through Canada Beef, and industry research through the Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC).

The goal of the checkoff is to increase the sales of domestic and export beef, and find better, more efficient methods of producing beef and beef cattle.

“The national checkoff came into place about 17 years ago and we have never seen an increase to that. What that means, is that right now we are operating on about a 70-cent dollar when we just include inflation and not all the other things that can erode that dollar,” German said. “Not only is that dollar eroded to about a 70-cent dollar, but we have also seen our cattle inventory in Canada decrease significantly. What that means is smaller budgets for those national groups. What this increase will mean is the ability to not only continue programming for those national groups at the level they are now, but also enhance them.”

A few years ago the National Beef Strategy, a group of representatives from across the Canadian beef industry, proposed an increase from $1/head to $2.50/head. Since that time, provincial organizations have presented the proposed increase to their producers.

“Producers had an opportunity to attend those meetings. Right now, eight of the nine provinces we deal with have had a positive resolution or motion come to their AGM and passed in support of that increase,” German said.

Provincial input

Manitoba is one of the jurisdictions that approved the increase.

“Last year at the Manitoba Beef Producers (MBP) annual general meeting, a resolution was passed to support an increase to the national checkoff from the $1/head to $2.50/head,” said MBP general manager, Brian Lemon.

Provincial organizations also determine how they would like to see their contribution to the national checkoff allotted.

“As a provincial organization, we get to decide where that split should be. In Manitoba, it was decided that the appropriate split was: 85 cents goes to promotion and marketing and 15 cents goes to research,” Lemon said.

To go along with the increase, provincial organizations will now have a third allotment avenue, which has been entitled, issues management.

“There (is) a need to support the consumer and the public, in terms of beef and why beef is a healthy protein option, but also being able to tell our story about things like hormone-free beef or antibiotic resistance,” German said. “This area of issues management is all about ensuring we are out in front of things, telling our story to the consumer, to the public about really what is happening in the industry and making that connection. We have really lost that connection and that is why this issues management came up as a component of one of the pillars in the National Strategy that we felt was very important to support.”

Evaluating value

Every five years the Canadian Beef Cattle Check-Off Agency has committed to conducting a study that will examine the economic benefits from the checkoff.

“What do you get for your checkoff? Where is the value in the checkoff? It recently conducted this study that looked at the years 2011 through 2014,” Lemon said. “Every time you pay your $1/head national checkoff, it returns $14 worth of value to the beef industry, in terms of new and improved innovations, efficiencies, new markets, bigger markets, market access, those sorts of things.”

The study, Evaluating the Economic Benefits from the Canadian Beef Cattle Check-off, was the second analysis of the checkoff and was completed in June.

“Every five years we commission someone to evaluate and crunch the numbers about what is getting back to producers for the dollars they give up. How well are we working on their behalf?” German said. “What we found this year was the return on investment rose to 14:1. That is very significant and if we compare that to our trading partners in Australia and the U.S., we find that our return on investment is higher and we are doing a very good job.”

Next step

At this point the Canadian Beef Cattle Check-Off Agency is working with provincial organizations to get through the paperwork of enacting the increase.

“It does get fairly complicated because every province has different rules and regulations,” German said. “So, a little complicated, but not undoable, it just takes us some time to go through the process and the paperwork.”

German adds that Manitoba producers can expect more information on when they will see the increase at MBP’s upcoming AGM in February.

“We are currently working on negotiating agreements with each province. Most of the provinces will be signing those in December and January. So, by February we will have a lot more knowledge as to when we might anticipate that increase,” German said.

For more information visit, canadabeef.ca/national-check-off/.

The post Increase to national beef checkoff to come in 2017 appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

That’s the conclusion of a researcher who started his career on an Alberta-wide study of how land use affects that province’s carbon pool.

Daniel Hewins, now an assistant professor at Rhode Island College in Providence, R.I., says grasslands can and do store an enormous amount of soil carbon.

“Temperate grasslands make up about eight per cent of the earth’s surface but they hold a lot of carbon, an estimated 300 gigatons is what we have seen,” Hewins said at the recent annual meeting of the Canadian Forage and Grasslands Association in Winnipeg.

“About nine gigatons or three per cent of that is above ground in plant material and about 295 gigatons is in the soil. So, it is really important to value that soil and value that soil carbon.”

The research study involved 144 grassland enclosures, including both grazed and ungrazed sites.

“Many of the ungrazed sites have not been grazed by livestock for more than 60 years so this really gave us the opportunity to sample native prairie in both grazed and ungrazed communities in a paired setting,” Hewins said.

In fact Hewins stressed that this sort of work is unprecedented in its scale and allows researchers like him a new window into what happens below our feet.

“This is really a one-of-a-kind comprehensive study looking at how grazing affects carbon stores and grassland biodiversity across up to six different agro climatic zones,” he said.

“We are really aiming, with our research, to get a provincial-scale assessment of how land use and livestock grazing affect plant communities and how that subsequently affects carbon storage. And then, how can we assign some monetary value to that or some incentive for ranchers and those of you who are out there doing the work to protect these ecological goods and services.”

The study, his post-doctoral fellow research, was conducted at the Rangeland Research Institute in the department of agriculture, food and nutritional science at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. It ran from 2013 to 2016 and measured the effects of livestock grazing on the carbon nutrient cycling in the grasslands of central and southern Alberta.

Differences

Not all grasslands are the same and the study revealed some profound differences based on management and environment.

In wetter environments there is an increase in introduced species and grazing them promotes the biodiversity of perennial native grasses.

“With grazing in some of these wetter environments we saw an increase in diversity, so the number of species in a community,” he said. “When we have moisture available to plants, we were seeing an increase in diversity as a response to grazing, so grazing is actually stimulating biodiversity in these systems.”

The study also identified an increase in productivity and increased biodiversity under grazing.

“All of these things are pointing to the fact that grazing in these grassland systems is essentially good for these ecological goods and services,” Hewins said. “Grazing not only seems to promote biodiversity of our perennial native grasses, it also seems to limit shrub encroachment into our grassland environment. This is particularly important in places like the Rocky Mountain foothill region, or the Rocky Mountain forest reserve where grazing land is already quite limited due to the nature of the ecosystem.”

He adds that grazing also stimulated root production, which increases plant biomass and ultimately leads to the formation of soil carbon. So in fact, grazing can provide the opportunity to enhance and maintain soil carbon pools.

Incentives

Hewins, along with many others within the forage sector, believe that incentives should be put in place to encourage producers to avoid converting grasslands and to manage the land in a way that is sustainable.

“Although there is no willingness to pay for what is stored in the grasslands, there should be a point made that we are protecting what is there by managing the land effectively or sustainably in that way,” Hewins said. “If grasslands are converted it is also difficult to get that carbon back, so when we seed back to native, there have been some studies done and it looks like it takes more than 50 years to get that carbon pool back up to where it really was before conversion. Ultimately, there needs to be a willingness to pay to protect some of this carbon because not only is it stored and protected in grasslands, it is also very, very difficult to get back into the soil.”

In order to achieve any progress towards incentives, Hewins says the industry needs data to support what is truly happening on the landscape.

“We are working at generating a lot of this data to say, look, we are standing on a gold mine here and we need to incentivize and value this carbon stock that is in our native grasslands and our prairies,” Hewins said. “Essentially there needs to be voices that are echoing these messages and these messages need to be supported by data. They cannot stand on anecdotes alone. Native grasslands that many of you manage are providing abundant goods and services not only for your communities but also for the broader society. Services like carbon storage, improved soil health, water filtration, greenhouse gas uptake, and these are all really important for policy.”

Hewins adds that research on land use and grazing systems continues at the University of Alberta with the ultimate goal of assigning a provincial-scale assessment of carbon in response to grazing.

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