Alberta’s agriculture department will put some of its Growing Forward funding toward a mentorship program to encourage sustainable grazing.
The sustainable grazing mentorship program (SGMP) will give producers the opportunity to work directly with experienced grazing mentors for eight or 16 hours to develop a customized grazing plan.
A mentor for this program will be “a respected producer peer with extensive grazing management experience and knowledge,” who can make recommendations on grazing management to help producers “improve their profits, forage productivity, and land and water resources,” according to the Agricultural Research and Extension Council of Alberta (ARECA).
For 16 hours of mentorship, a producer would pay $100 while the SGMP covers the balance for the grazing mentor’s mentoring and travel expenses. For eight hours, the producer would pay $50 and the SGMP would cover the balance.
Or, as ARECA noted in a release Wednesday, the program also allows for groups of four to six producers to meet for a six-hour group session with a grazing mentor, for which each producer would pay $30 while the SGMP covers the balance.
