My Speeches

National Soil Conservation Week

Posted on Apr 21, 2009

The Speaker: The hon. Member for Battle River-Wainwright.

National Soil Conservation Week

Mr. Griffiths: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to bring to this
Assembly’s attention that April 19 to 25 is National Soil Conservation
Week. Soil and water are two necessary ingredients to sustain
human life and produce food. Today it is more important than ever
to preserve soil to ensure that future generations will enjoy the same
rich benefits of home-grown agricultural products.
Development demands often take prime agricultural land out of
production. Fortunately, researchers and inventive farmers are
setting the bar higher for soil conservation management practices.
Since 1991 conservation tillage practices in Alberta have steadily
grown to represent about half of the annually seeded areas. Alberta
farmers are effectively using direct seeding, no-till and zero-till
practices.A reduced tillage system contributes to the government of
Alberta’s climate change strategy as well by removing atmospheric
carbon and sequestering that carbon within the soil. Farmers who
have adopted these practices have been able to benefit from the
Alberta carbon offset market since 2007. Last year, in fact, Mr.
Speaker, 10 of the 25 registered carbon offset projects were notillage
agriculture, which contributed a total of just over a million
tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalences, or 30 per cent of the total
carbon offsets.
I’d like this Assembly to acknowledge the efforts of dedicated soil
and crop research scientists, professional agrologists, and
forwardthinking
prairie farmers who developed and adopted soil conservation
techniques over the past seven decades. The Dirty Thirties
taught us a valuable lesson, Mr. Speaker. It has been this cumulative
effort that has rebuilt, maintained, and improved soil quality across
Alberta and western Canada.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.