MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY – Members of the county’s agricultural service board (ASB) recently carried a motion to enter into a contract with Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation to deliver the new resilient agriculture landscape program (RALP).
Administration will determine if the program can be delivered locally under current capacity and then report back to the board.
The initiative was launched in April and is designed to help increase the resiliency of agriculture landscapes, ASB members heard.
“Under the program, producers are able to access funding to accelerate the adoption of beneficial management practices that maximize the provision of ecological goods and services, through carbon sequestration and enhancing climate resilience,” said Lorelee Grattidge, the county’s sustainable agriculture specialist.
Agriculture and Irrigation is currently gauging the interest of ASBs to enter into three-year general service contracts to promote and support delivery of the RALP within municipalities.
“The objective with RALP is to incentivize the adoption of best management practices (BMPs) that maximize environmental goods and services,” she said. “There are some BMPs that provide significant natural value but offer limited private benefit for producers or have prohibitive costs.
“To address this, funding is offered on a per-acre payment basis for a term of three years. In this way, RALP can better support producers in their ability to implement projects on their land that over time can provide significant benefits for the producers, the public and future generations.”
The proposed contract would promote and extend the program in the municipality, support producers with applications, and verify projects to ensure conditions of the initiative are being met.
The value of each contract would be approximately $14,500 a year, members heard.
The RALP itself is being offered under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership between the provincial and federal governments.
The Mountain View County ASB is made up of county councillors and appointed members of the district’s agricultural community. It promotes and supports agriculture in the municipality.
