Page 16
February, 2020
Natural land: Lost opportunity, or valuable resource?
A
re those old fencerows, tree bluffs, wetlands, and shelterbelts an opportunity to farm more acres? Before you clear and remove them, stop and consider their value to crop production. The desire to remove these areas is well understood: many times, they’re in the way. Especially isolated tree bluffs and wetlands. As equipment gets larger and wider, it becomes more and more difficult, and less efficient to farm around these areas. As well, old shelterbelts and fencerows prevent consolidation of neighbouring properties when they’re acquired, and are difficult to manage as they mature. And lastly, as farmland becomes more and more valuable, it is often more economical to farm more of the land a producer already owns simply by removing trees or water and farming through it. In spite of the fact that there is an area of reduced yield immediately adjacent to shelterbelts, ditches and tree bluffs, there are data going back at least 50 years demonstrating the net positive effect on yield they have. Indeed, this relationship is well documented across Canada as a means of increasing net yield, by managing wind and water. Recent research, however, has begun to show that this yield relationship exists for not just shelterbelts
but all of the natural and uncultivated spaced listed above – fencerows, ditches, tree bluffs, and wetlands. Work in northern Alberta showed that the presence of these uncultivated spaced within 750 meters of crop had a strong positive effect on Canola yield… in fact, more than enough to compensate for the opportunity cost of growing trees and shrubs rather than crops. This is part of a larger global body of literature which shows the same effect. Currently in Western Canada, several producer and government-funded project are underway to put a dollar value on these uncultivated
