Chris Elder, Alus Vermilion River program coordinator, talked about nature-based solutions for farmers and ranchers to sustain agriculture and biodiversity during the Rotary Club of Lloydminster’s Monday lunch meeting. Geoff Lee Meridian Source
It was time to chew the cud on a little-known agricultural program at the Rotary Club of Lloydminster’s Monday meeting.
Environmental land stewardship for local producers was the topic presented by speaker Chris Elder, program coordinator of Alus in the County of Vermilion River, based in Kitscoty.
Alus is originally an acronym for Alternative Land Use Services.
However, it’s best defined these days as helping farmers and ranchers build nature-based solutions on their land to sustain agriculture and biodiversity for the benefit of the community and future generations.
“We focus on land stewardship projects,” said Elder, who lives in Vermilion.
“We do a lot of things around wetlands, fencing wetlands and building watering systems to support livestock production. We also do riparian tree buffers and tree planting projects and anything to support wildlife habitat including pollinators.”
The first Alus project in Alberta kicked off in the County in 2010 with Elder named the coordinator in 2015 after graduating from Lakeland College in Vermilion with a bachelor of applied sciences degree in environment management.
Elder provides technical and financial support to local agricultural producers to develop, implement and manage environmental stewardship projects.
Currently, there are 18 such community programs in Alberta with local leadership and decision making a key point to attract producers.
“We’re in our 13th year and we have a good roster of producers in the program and we expand every year,” said Elder. “We usually do about 10 projects a year with 10 producers.”
The priority projects in the County are wetlands and surface water management.
Numbers to date include 49 participants, 4,152 acres, 30 kilometres of fence, 76 conservation agreements, 268 improved wetlands, 32 watering systems and $968,000 invested since 2015.
While most of the projects are on marginal land, Alus is also piloting enhanced grazing projects on working land with seven of these new projects in 2022.
Elder says producers are responsible for making sure fence lines are intact for example, and making sure the projects are moving along in the way they were originally agreed upon.
“It’s an ongoing partnership,” said Elder with a partnership advisory committee of producers, the County, NGOs and industry.
Project funding comes from federal Alus and provincial grants, private and corporate donations and local government grants among other sources.
“Most of it is private funding that flows through from those funders to the producers,” said Elder.
