Timing Matters: Winter Spreading

January 26, 2018 | Richard Blyleven

Farmers have always been stewards of the land. That means we need to take responsibility for even the unforeseen consequences of our farming practices.

Over the last few years, for example, Lake Erie has had a tremendous problem with algal blooms. The problem is caused by phosphorus entering the lake. Agriculture is part of that problem, thanks to phosphorus leeching from fertilizers and animal manures. It is fair to say that over the last fifty or sixty years, farmers have done a good job of sending less phosphorus into the lake. Still, we need to do more to curb phosphorus run-off.

That’s why the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and several Ontario commodity and farming organizations, including the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, are working together on the Timing Matters Peer-to-Peer pilot program. The goal is to encourage farmers to avoid spreading manure during the winter—and to prove to government that we can regulate ourselves.

The pilot project is currently running in the Lake Erie basin, from Windsor to Guelph, and works to identify, visit, and educate farmers who are seen spreading manure when the ground is frozen or has snow cover on it. In both cases, the soil is slow to absorb nutrients, so a high level of nutrient leeching will result.

OMAFRA field staff travelling in the Lake Erie basin will identify the farms performing winter spreading and do a risk assessment of the situation. The assessment will be very basic, but if warranted, commodity groups will get involved. Each commodity organization will designate a peer farmer to give the producer advice on alternatives to winter spreading.

We are hoping that farmers who do apply manure at the wrong time of year will listen to the advice of peers who understand the region and work within the same commodity.

Farms larger than 300 units are regulated under the Nutrient Management Act, so the Timing Matters Peer-to-Peer initiative is aimed at farms with 300 animal units or less. Unlike legislation, there aren’t one size-fits-all rules in an approach like this. Farm-size and geography will make a difference as to how big a problem winter-spreading is. A one-off incident will be treated differently than regularly scheduled spreading.

We at the CFFO are hopeful that this pilot project in the Lake Erie basin will be successful in reducing phosphorus run-off in the Lake. If successful, we hope that the Timing Matters peer-to-peer pilot project can be applied to the entire province to reduce phosphorus in all our freshwater basins.

Richard Blyleven is a Director of the Board of Directors of the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario. The CFFO Commentary represents the opinions of the writer and does not necessarily represent CFFO policy. The CFFO Commentary is heard weekly on CFCO Chatham, CKXFM Chatham, CKNX Wingham, and UCB Canada radio stations in Chatham, Belleville, Bancroft, Brockville and Kingston.