Returning pastures to private sector short-sighted

People didn't know much about soil and water management in the 1800s when homesteaders fanned out across the Prairies to plow land that was previously protected by grass and fertilized by roving herds of bison.

It took several decades, droughts, dust storms and heartache and hardship before governments acknowledged there were vast swaths of land that couldn't sustain dryland farming methods under private management.

And without intervention to stabilize the shifting soils, the region was at risk of becoming a desert.

So began the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA), a federal agency formed by statute in 1935 to turn things around. By 1937, its role had evolved in a number of directions, but one in particular was highly significant.

The legislation was amended to allow the administration to negotiate with private landowners, municipal and provincial governments to permanently remove large chunks of highly marginal and erosion-prone lands from cultivation and restore them to grass.

Those publicly owned grasslands were converted into community pastures under federal management, which leased grazing rights to farmers so they could devote their good cropland to crops and still be diversified with livestock.

For the next 75 years, those community pastures, now numbering 85 across the west, would play an integral role in allowing sustainable commercial activity to take place while preserving the land in a natural state. About 3,100 producers pay to use the 930,000 hectares they encompass to provide feed and bull services to 230,000 cattle a year, or about five per cent of the cow herd.

Today, the pastures are one of the few remaining places in North America where one can earn a living as a professional cowboy, as horses remain the most practical method of working the cattle on these ranges. But they are also places of tremendous natural heritage.

"The pastures represent some of the largest contiguous blocks of grasslands in Canada and are examples of functional prairie ecosystems," says a federal report laying out the pasture's most recent business plan five years ago. "The pastures contribute to Canada's commitment to a number of international agreements covering biodiversity, climate change and protected areas."

They provide habitat for a diverse, grassland ecosystem and homes for multiple species at risk such as the ferruginous hawk, burrowing owl and plant species such as hairy prairie clover.

Natural capital is tough to measure. How do you rank the value of an endangered hawk, a rare plant or cleaner water? Outside consultants hired to measure the costs and benefits of the community pastures determined in 2006 the program generated private and public benefits amounting to $58.3 million annually.

"While a portion of these benefits is realized directly to fee-paying clients, the citizens of Canada (and the world) indirectly receive benefits worth at least $37 million," the report said. Cost of operating the pastures was set at $30.6 million, most of which was covered by user fees, leaving $8.8 million to come from government. Benefits of these pastures related to the program's cost were ranked at seven to one.

While 52 per cent of the program costs were associated with private uses, only 36 per cent of those benefits were direct to users. Fully 64 per cent of the benefits flow to society by way of improved soil, water and ecological quality.

In short, it's a government program that has worked to preserve and restore fragile lands while supporting diversified commercial agricultural activity. Their value to Canada's national interest far exceeds their cost to taxpayers.

But that didn't spare them from the Harper government's budgetary chopping block.

"They've done a great job getting us to this point, but I think it's time some of these grounds are returned to the private sector and the province, and the federal government pull out of that type of management," Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said as the government served notice it will withdraw from the program over the next several years.

Putting the land back into crops, even under conservation tillage, would be a travesty. Management of some of these pastures might be taken on by the provinces or producer coalitions. Some of those cowboys and their horses might still have jobs. But we can expect management of those that remain will become less consistent, and more focused on short-term gains that can be tangibly measured. There's a high risk the societal benefits will be undervalued, or lost.

Laura Rance is editor of the Manitoba Co-operator. She can be reached at laura@fbcpublishing.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 5, 2012 B8