Community Pasture Receives Ontario Environmental Accolade By Lee Hart for CCA Action News and BFO Staff
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FO is pleased to announce the Grey-Dufferin Community Pasture as the 2022 recipient of The Environmental Stewardship Award (TESA). The award is sponsored by the RBC Royal Bank and was announced at BFO’s 60th Annual General Meeting, which was held virtually in February. Located near the village of Dundalk in Grey County, the Grey-Dufferin Community Pasture has developed strong, sustainable farming practices to ensure the productivity of their members’ cattle, as well as to ensure the health and fertility of the land they share. This community pasture has demonstrated their environmental stewardship through their commitment to grazing management, willingness to support research and project development, and dedication to preserving Ontario’s pasturelands. “The award is a tribute to the foresight of the board of directors who over the years have recognized not only the value, but their responsibility to apply proper management practices,” says Mike Swidersky, manager of the community pasture located in an area known as the Dundalk Highlands. “It demonstrates that proper environmental stewardship and improved beef production can complement each other.” The 700-acre community pasture, that includes about 100 acres of creeks and riparian areas, was established in 1979 following the amalgamation of several smaller farms. It is the largest block of pastureland in Grey and Dufferin Counties. Operated under a rotational grazing system since 1980, the whole management strategy has evolved and intensified over the years recognizing the need to protect sensitive wetlands and riparian areas, along with applying proper grazing and forage management practices. Those practices have protected and enhanced wildlife habitat, while at the same time improving forage production, which has supported increased beef production. “Over the decades the farm has been able to gradually increase its cattle numbers, from a couple hundred head in the early 1980s to 600 head of steers and heifers today,” says Swidersky. “Throughout the years, the management of the grazing has evolved from having four different smaller groups of cattle which were moved every seven to 14 days to now, where there are two larger groups which are divided into smaller fields with temporary fence and moved every two days. The plan is to allow 45 to 50 days rest on a 120-day grazing season.” The community pasture is part of the Dundalk Highlands, which is known for its fertile flat landscape with cool temperatures and high
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elevations. The area is the start of several of southern Ontario’s watersheds. The riparian area within the community pasture includes a spring fed creek/municipal drain that runs through the center of most of the farm. The farm also has a sizable land area, which is low land that contains black muck soil and is prone to flooding. The rest of the land is mostly flat, open land with treed sections throughout. Proper grazing and forage management has been a priority for community pasture patrons from the start. In the early 1980s the farm sold saw logs and firewood from its woodlot to fund the fencing and cross fencing projects. That project also included exclusion fence to keep the cattle out of the creek and other sensitive riparian areas. In the early years, the community pasture’s board of directors made it a priority to provide livestock with clean water through an off-site watering system. With the help of some government programs there were several kilometers of buried and surface water lines installed. At the same time, there were also seven different watering points developed. These consisted of cement water troughs that were placed on gravel, cement or recycled asphalt shingles bases. The whole watering system is based around the water drawn from a 100-foot drilled well. “We are extremely fortunate to have a reliable source of high-quality water,” says Swidersky. “The well consistently maintains a water level 15 feet from the top.” After many years of investment, the water system is still going strong with most of the trough set ups still being used today. Swidersky says the troughs and bases have proven to be extremely important especially with large groups of cattle in years with excess rainfall. In recent years, there have been additional watering points set up in response to the tweaks of the ever-evolving grazing system. Along with fencing to exclude cattle from the waterways, GreyDufferin Community Pasture has also been proactive in protecting its watercourses by installing environmentally friendly low-level water crossing structures and culvert systems. This allows both cattle and equipment to cross the watercourses without disturbing the creek beds. Being in a higher rainfall area, Swidersky says the Grey-Dufferin Community Pasture generally has to be managed for wetter growing conditions as opposed to dryer conditions, although some year’s lack of moisture is a concern, too. Weather and moisture variability requires the management plan to be flexible and adaptive to growing conditions. While proper fertility has been important over the years to maintain and improve forage production, the community pasture did make an important change a few years ago to enhance environmental stewardship. For many years nitrogen fertilizer was applied to provide nutrients to forage crops. Swidersky says over time it became apparent that there were problems with this strategy both economically and environmentally. “In wet years it was difficult to get application equipment on to the farm to apply the product,” he says. “There was also the danger of leaching nitrogen into the nearby creeks. This was a cost to the dollars invested, grass and animal performance, as well as the possible loss of
