Summary

• Farmers in Saskatchewan are dealing with variable weather, exacerbated by climate change. For many, this has meant hotter, drier summers, but the experience is far from universal.
• In some areas of Saskatchewan, growing conditions have improved with a changing climate.
• Farmers are also better equipped to deal with harsh weather, as new technologies and farming practices develop.

Scott Hepworth’s great-grandma used to have to shovel dirt out of the kitchen after dust storms swept across the Prairies.

More than a century later, drought is still a factor on Hepworth’s fifth-generation family farm near Assiniboia, Sask. In fact, it remains a defining feature of the land, which sits within the Palliser Triangle, one of Canada’s driest agricultural regions. 

But despite increasingly volatile weather in recent years, including long dry spells, record heat and sharp swings between extended drought punctuated by patchy rain, Hepworth says his crops aren’t suffering — instead, they’re performing better than expected in these conditions. 

He estimates that since he began farming in 2004, his crop yields during hot, dry summers have roughly doubled compared to what they were a few decades ago. 

It’s come as a surprise to some farmers across the Prairies: they are seeing the impacts of climate change, yes. But those impacts haven’t necessarily been bad for their bottom lines.

Only a few hours away from Hepworth’s farm, in northeast Saskatchewan — a region once considered too cold and wet — warming temperatures and drier conditions have improved growing conditions. 

“We were the worst place in the province to farm when I started farming, and now we’re the best place,” Ted Cawkwell, who owns a farm in the area with a couple partners, says.

On his land, fields that were historically difficult to seed and harvest are now more reliable. And he hasn’t seen damaging early frosts, once common every few years, in decades. 

Cawkwell says yields on his farm have improved dramatically over the past decade. The area overall has seen some of the highest yields in the province in recent years.

While there are several reasons for this — including better crop genetics and farming practices — Cawkwell believes changing weather patterns have been a major factor, too. 

“Twenty years ago, I would have never guessed the climate could change like this. You think of climate change as in tens of thousands, or millions, of years — not twenty. And that’s kind of the scary part of this.”

Farming wins are a combination of changing weather and new practices

Of course, the story is nuanced. On Hepworth’s farm, it’s not just the changing climate that has improved his crops. Conserving moisture has long been a focus for the family. Hepworth’s dad adopted what’s known as minimal-till seeding in the 1980s — essentially, reducing or eliminating the need to plough the soil when planting new seeds. This has improved soil health and reduced erosion. Another practice that Hepworth believes has benefited his farm is called continuous cropping, meaning every acre has a crop on it every year; roots in the ground rather than bare fields help retain moisture and protect the soil.

Advances in crop genetics have also played a big role, Hepworth says. He also serves as a director for SaskWheat, the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission — a farmer-funded organization that invests in wheat research and crop variety development. Over the past several decades, hundreds of millions of dollars in public and farmer funding have gone into developing new wheat and durum varieties in Canada. Hepworth is now able to grow drought-tolerant wheat and durum varieties bred to be shorter and better able to withstand stress.

It’s all helped. Hepworth, now in his early 40s, has his own memories from his childhood, of dust storms so intense he couldn’t see across the yard. Largely because of improved farming practices and soil management, he hasn’t seen one since. 

For Hepworth, a combination of climate, farming methods and technology have led to increased success.

But the experience is anything but universal.

“It’s been quite variable, even within a few kilometres,” he says. 

In parts of southern Saskatchewan, particularly deeper into the Palliser Triangle, recent conditions have had a very different impact.

A few hours southwest of Hepworth’s farm is Climax, Sask. — one of the driest regions in the province. 

Here, farmer Cody Glenn says he has experienced about six consecutive years of drought on his farm. 

In 2021, the worst year for drought in Saskatchewan in two decades, Glenn says 260 acres of barley resulted in almost nothing. The crop couldn’t even be properly harvested, producing just a couple bales of low-quality feed.

In other recent years, his barley yields were around a quarter of what they should be. 

In light of all this, he says his current strategy is just to stay viable. 

Despite changing weather, crop yields overall are holding — and even rising across the province

Even though there’s no question some farmers have struggled under increasingly variable weather across the Prairies, crop production has not declined as sharply as some predicted. 

The reality is far more nuanced, Dave Sauchyn, a leading Canadian climate scientist with a focus on the Prairies, says. 

“There’s no single climate,” he says. “It varies a lot from place to place.” 

Across the Prairies, climate change is showing up most clearly through warmer winters and longer frost-free seasons, rather than consistent increases in extreme summer heat, he says. 

In many areas, peak temperatures still haven’t exceeded those seen in the 1930s, in the “Dust Bowl” era.

Water patterns, however, are shifting in more complex ways, he adds. Snow is generally melting earlier, more precipitation is falling as rain instead of snow and less water is available later in the summer. 

As a result, Sauchyn says, drought remains the main concern. That pressure is most acute in the Palliser Triangle, where dryness has long shaped farming practices. But in recent years, moisture stress has also become more common in parts of the northern and eastern grain belt — areas that historically faced fewer drought constraints.

And not all these changing patterns are bad for farming regions. 

Fewer and shorter cold periods are extending the growing season. In some regions — particularly along the northern and western margins of Saskatchewan — this is actually improving production, as Cawkwell has seen on his farm.

And despite increased variability, overall crop performance has remained relatively strong. Yields for major Saskatchewan crops such as wheat and canola have generally trended upward over the last couple decades, with many recent years coming in at, or above, long-term averages. 

Jeff Schoenau, a soil scientist at the University of Saskatchewan, says this reflects decades of improvements in farming practices.

He says comparisons of Prairie soil samples from 1996 to 2018 show significant gains in key indicators such as microbial biomass, respiration and organic matter — factors that contribute to healthier, more resilient soils. These improvements are the result of smarter farming practices, he says. That includes conservation tillage (avoiding or minimally ploughing a field every year), diverse crop rotations (not planting the same monocrop in the same field year after year) and more precise use of fertilizers.  

Combined with advances in crop genetics and other improved farming strategies, Schoenau says crops today can withstand conditions that would have caused far greater losses in the past.

And while climate scientists like Sauchyn expect continued variability — and potentially more severe drought — Schoenau believes farmers will continue to adapt. 

“Farmers are pretty resilient, and when things change, they adapt and they use all of the resources and ingenuity and expertise available.”

Some scientists and farmers are cautiously optimistic — but not all

Sauchyn is also cautiously optimistic. 

He is clear that prolonged drought would pose serious challenges, particularly in a warmer climate. It will be critical, he says, to understand the difference between what’s a short-term blip and what is a long-term trend. 

But his team’s projections, based on large geospatial datasets of climate, soils and yields, suggest that northern and western margins of the grain belt may continue to benefit. That’s because it’s getting warmer and growing seasons are getting longer.

This offers little hope to farmers like Glenn, who lost the lottery in terms of farm placement. 

He says farmers in his area are displaying their despair.

“There’s more land for sale down here than there is buyers.”

For now, he hopes crop insurance will help carry him through, but if dry conditions persist, the path forward becomes less clear — particularly in areas where irrigation options remain limited. 

“I know I’m an optimist. I always have been, but it’s really hard to see the future currently.”

Hepworth is inspired greatly by his great-grandparents, who persisted through their own tough times.

“We’re in a dry cycle now, but farmers always find ways to adapt, and we’re always looking for ways to improve our soil health and leave our land in better shape for the next generation,” he says. 

“I feel as though every generation on this farm has had it better than the last, and that’s what motivates me.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Bill Prybylski has been farming in southeast Saskatchewan for more than 40 years, but last year he did something he never thought possible. 

“We grew roughly 75 bushels an acre of wheat on three inches of rain,” he says, noting that rainfall was far below average. “That shouldn’t happen.” 

When he told his 96-year-old mother, she nearly fell off her chair — and for good reason. Not long ago, wheat in Saskatchewan would have required far more moisture, delivered at just the right moments, to achieve such high yields and quality. 

Today, that math has changed. New farming practices and improved wheat varieties allow farmers to produce more with less, even under tough conditions. Prybylski credits one factor above all for making that yield possible: applied farm research, the real-life testing of new farming practices and products conducted at federally funded research stations embedded across the country. 

That research, he says, gave him the confidence to adopt new practices related to seeding or fertilizer application techniques that improved efficiency, cut input costs (like fertilizer or herbicides) and helped him manage risk in a dry year. In his case, much of that information came from the research farm at Indian Head, Sask., about an hour and a half drive from his farm near Willowbrook, Sask.  

Which is why Prybylski calls the announcement late last month that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada will close seven agricultural research sites — including the one at Indian Head — a “head-scratcher.”

Research farms have long been a place to develop and test new varieties of crops and conduct agriculture research. “We’ve developed some of the highest-quality bread wheat and durum wheat varieties and we’re known for growing the best wheat in the world,” Jocelyn Velestuk, a Saskatchewan farmer and chair of SaskWheat, a farm commission that invests in research and market development, says. The stakes are high: Canada exports roughly 25 million tonnes of wheat each year, worth an estimated $11.5 billion, making it one of the country’s most valuable agricultural exports.  

But the federal government says cutting research farms — and more than 650 staff, roughly 12 per cent of the department’s workforce — is strategic, and will allow it to put resources where they’re most needed. “These choices position Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to sustain strong scientific capacity, improve efficiency and concentrate resources where they will continue to generate scientific, economic and environmental benefits,” a spokesperson said in response to emailed questions from The Narwhal.

The closures affect research sites across the country, from Alberta to Nova Scotia and in between.

The impacts may extend far beyond the farm gate, says Stuart Smyth, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan and agriculture economist.  

“This is going to contribute to higher food prices for all Canadian consumers.” 

Across the Prairies — the heart of Canada’s agriculture industry — the reaction to the federal government’s cuts to research farms has been strikingly consistent. Farm groups say the sector once again feels sidelined, far removed from federal decision-making in Ottawa. 

Prybylski is also a board member with the advocacy group Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, and says the lack of warning was as frustrating as the decision itself — and, unfortunately, a familiar experience. 

“There have been several cases in the past where decisions have been made, and then we find out about them and start looking into the ramifications and start pushing back, and then the government takes a second look at it.” Given that they’ve walked things back before, such as announced changes to federal farm business management programs, he wonders why they wouldn’t learn from that and consult this time.

“That’s probably the most disappointing part — there was no forewarning and no consultation,” he says.

Fast cuts, slow consequences

For Velestuk, the news was also surprising.  

“We didn’t know there would be direct cuts at research stations,” she says. “If we’d been told this was coming, we would have hoped to prepare differently.” 

Velestuk says that while the effects of the cuts may not be immediately visible, the long-term consequences could be significant — particularly for the competitiveness of Canada’s grain sector. Beyond limiting applied research, she says the cuts reduce capacity for developing new crop varieties, a cornerstone of the wheat industry.

Several of the sites slated for closure or wind-down — including facilities in Lacombe, Alta., Guelph, Ont., and Quebec City — have historically housed crop science and breeding teams specializing in variety development and related research. 

Along with other Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada breeding programs, these centres have spent decades developing many of the crop varieties most widely grown by Canadian farmers today, and now in demand from buyers around the world. 

“We need both quality and yield from our wheat grown in the Prairies in order to be able to market our grain to different countries and remain viable on our farms.”

Beyond variety development, Velestuk says applied research carried out at regional research stations plays a critical role for farmers on the ground. 

“One of the biggest strengths of having research stations spread across the Prairies was that research didn’t happen in just one set of conditions. Wheat breeding, other crop breeding and agronomy trials were tested across a wide range of ecozones, allowing researchers to see what actually worked, where and under which conditions,” she says. 

“That kind of regional testing is critical when you’re dealing with challenges like drought, heat or disease — because a practice or crop variety that works in one area may not work the same way in another.”

The impact of this research is measurable. According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, many of today’s most common — and valuable — farming practices, including direct seeding and no-till systems, were tested, proven and adapted locally through applied research and extension. These practices are largely credited with being beneficial to farms economically, but also reducing greenhouse gas emissions per bushel and improving the quality of Canadian farmland soils.

Climate goals, cut short?

For many in the agriculture sector, one of the most puzzling aspects of the announcement is how sharply it appears to conflict with the federal government’s stated climate priorities. In recent years, Ottawa has emphasized investments in climate-smart agriculture, precision tools and sustainable production practices — many of which rely directly on applied research, conducted on now-closed research farms, to help farmers reduce emissions while remaining productive.

“On one hand, they’re saying we need to improve our environmental footprint, we need to be more conscientious of things that we do that affect the environment,” Prybylski says. “But we can’t do that if we don’t have the research to show us what we need to do better … where we can make improvements that are beneficial to the environment, to the public good.”

Smyth says the cuts send a troubling signal about agriculture’s role in Canada’s long-term climate strategy — particularly at a time when innovation is increasingly critical.  

“The message I took from last week’s announcement is that the federal government is not interested in having agriculture contribute to mitigating climate change,” he says. Smyth notes that advances allowing crops and livestock to produce more with fewer greenhouse gas emissions — through improved genetics, resilience and efficiency — are among the most practical tools available to help agriculture adapt to climate pressures while meeting emissions targets. Research has made crop varieties better able to withstand pressures from extreme weather and changing environments, and still turn a profit for farmers.

Smyth says the decision is especially difficult to understand given the strong return on investment historically delivered by agricultural research, not only for farmers but for Canadians more broadly.  

“What it says to me is that science and empirical evidence on returns to investment don’t mean anything. These decisions were entirely political.”

Federal government stands by its decision

In response to the backlash, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada spokesperson Cameron Newbigging said the cuts were part of a broader effort to reduce costs and refocus on core responsibilities. The department aims to do all of this without compromising the quality or scope of federally funded agricultural research.  

“Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s decisions were guided by a careful review of the Department’s science activities, sector priorities, capacity and infrastructure,” Newbigging said in an emailed response to questions from The Narwhal, adding that the department will continue to operate 17 research centres across Canada. 

“We considered alignment with strategic priorities, capacity in other places, opportunities to strengthen support for the agriculture sector and ways to deliver science more efficiently while maintaining a presence in every province.”

Newbigging also reiterated the department’s commitment to remaining Canada’s largest agricultural research organization.  

“[Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada] will continue to advance high-impact science across key areas, including crop and horticultural production, animal production, food processing, biodiversity and environmental sustainability to address emerging priorities and build a competitive and innovative sector.”

Despite those assurances, many in the industry remain unconvinced the decision makes sense right now, particularly as farmers face growing economic, environmental and climate-related pressures — and continue to rely heavily on field-level, region-specific research. 

Velestuk says federal research and wheat-breeding programs “ultimately affects the sustainability of my farm and farms across Canada.” 

For Prybylski, who is in the process of transitioning his family farm to his son, daughter and two nephews, the concern is what these decisions mean over the long term.  

“There’s going to be some budget savings, no question about it, but the results of these decisions are going to be felt for generations. Once the cuts are made, it’s going to be really, really hard to bring this research back online.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

A variety of crops — millet, ryegrass, clover, hairy vetch, sunflowers and more — grow together in unlikely harmony in a field in south-central Saskatchewan, surrounded by the gentle buzzing of insects and birds on an early August day.

Accompanied by the gentle cacophony, Calvin Gavelin shovels up a sample of dark-coloured topsoil, still damp from the morning’s rain and heavy with thick plant roots, forms it into a rough ball the size of his hand and holds it out.

“That’s carbon!” he says, giddy like a little boy. 

Rich, dark soil is not common in this lonely region of the province, accessible only by single-lane highways lined with wild sunflowers.

If you were to go just down the road, the topsoil probably looks very different: sandier, drier, lighter in colour. That’s the type of soil that fares poorly in drought conditions — which this region has seen a lot of in recent decades.

It was during one of these recent drought years, in 2018, that Gavelin noticed something in the fields that changed the way he and his wife, Marla, managed their fourth-generation farm. 

“Where I had monoculture grass, it was burnt right out. I went to the native grass, and you had the variety of the forbs [flowering plants] and the shrubs [and] when you looked underneath it, everything was alive and green.”

“Our soil biology was dying.”

He came to Marla with his epiphany.

“I’m so stupid,” he told her. “I’ve been doing this process of killing our soil for all these years.”

That same year, Gavelin decided to adopt practices from what is commonly called regenerative agriculture: minimizing soil disturbances, keeping soils covered year-round, maintaining living roots in the soil, integrating livestock and enhancing biodiversity above and below ground.

In 2019, he planted his first cover crop (vegetation used to keep the soil covered, fertile and productive between main crop seasons or on unused land) — a mixture of legumes and cereals. The results, he says, were mind-blowing.

A hailstorm came in July that year that killed everything, and while his monoculture crops didn’t grow back, his one cover crop field did — enough to feed his cows through that fall and into the following spring.

“We’ve never done that before.”

Two years later, he seeded three different forage crop blends, custom-designed for the area. That year turned out to be one of the driest in the last 20 years, but despite the conditions, Gavelin says these three cover crops fed his 200 cows when everything else was dead in June. He also observed increased ovulation levels in the cows grazing on the blends, which generally translates into more calves — and more profits for cattle farmers.

Since then, he has continued to plant diverse cover crops, with some fields containing up to 20 different plants, including cereals, brassicas, legumes and forbs. The diversity is key, he says, as the different crops work together to protect the soil — capturing and retaining moisture and creating a canopy to keep the ground cooler.

And there are many more benefits, he says. The ground cover helps reduce erosion, for one. But having cover over the soil also means animals can graze there during the shoulder season, too. And the soil improves, to boot. Not to mention the biodiversity above ground.

Like Gavelin, many farmers are experimenting with regenerative practices — which are not to be confused with organic farming, though there may be some overlap.

Gavelin still uses synthetic fertilizers in his operations, meaning his regenerative farm is not organic. In Canada, organic farming means growing food without using synthetic chemicals or genetic engineering and following certain ecological practices.

The idea of regenerative farming is to use techniques that can be applied on a small or large scale to make soil healthier — and therefore also help the economics of farming. And while some worry “regenerative agriculture” is just a buzzword, or too impractical to take root, others are jumping at the chance to make changes.

Regenerative farming can be challenging — but even some bigger farms are trying it

It’s tough to say how many Canadian farmers are integrating regenerative practices on their farms. There’s no hard, official definition for the concept, or any accredited certification process in Canada (as there is for organic farming).

And while the majority of Canadian farmers employ methods like no-till farming, which could qualify, many of the other practices commonly considered to be regenerative are much less realistic for modern farming practices, because of biophysical barriers like soil type or climate, or operational barriers like cost. They’re not practical to implement — especially in larger-scale operations. 

But that hasn’t stopped some Saskatchewan farmers. 

A couple hours west of Gavelin’s farm, Mark Hoimyr and his wife Laura have completely revamped the cattle-grazing methods on their 5,500-acre beef operation in line with regenerative practices.

Hoimyr became interested in rotational grazing — moving livestock between different pasture areas to feed instead of the more common practice of using the same spot all season — after the couple took over the operation from his parents. It was a practical decision.

“It was obvious to me that we were going to struggle to purchase our way into expanding, so I wanted to try and expand by improving the efficiency of what we already had,” he says.

After years of trial and error in grazing techniques, he began to graze animals intensively in small areas for a short time, then leave the land to rest for a long period, allowing time for regrowth. He now grazes pastures once a year and native prairie every two years, letting cattle eat most of the grass and trampling the rest to enrich the soil.

So far, they’ve been happy with the results, he says.

“We could see that our land was doing better, and we were really happy with how healthy our cattle were.”

Rob Wunder, who farms in east-central Saskatchewan, is also happy with the results of his outside-the-box efforts.

After watching his parents, who previously ran his farm, adapt their practices to survive some challenging times — including the years of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as “mad cow disease,” which cost Canadian cattle farmers an estimated $2.5 billion in losses — he says that his fourth-generation farm is always open to trying new things.

Wunder started experimenting with regenerative agriculture in 2013.  

“I just kind of got tired of being reliant on and having big bills, as far as input bills,” he says, referring to the various inputs farmers rely on: fertilizers, pesticides, livestock feed, seed, energy and fuels and more.  

He later became interested in the idea of composting — using waste from his farm to fertilize and treat crops.

He now uses a custom compost turner to mix and cool compost made from animals’ bedding, wood chips, straw, oats and more, then spreads it on cropland. He also produces vermicast — nutrient-rich compost made from worm poop — and applies the microbe- and nutrient-rich liquid right into the soil with the seed to boost early growth.

“It didn’t take long to, for lack of a better term, fall in love with it all and start to see some benefits,” he says of the new techniques.

What’s better for the soil can be better for the bottom line, too

Many experts agree widespread adoption of regenerative practices could have substantial environmental and social benefits.

But farmers primarily make decisions based on economics. And while sometimes there’s direct, measurable payoff for adopting regenerative practices on a farm, often it’s more complex.

Gavelin says using cover crops to feed his cattle on pasture costs half as much as feeding them in a pen, saving him about $200 per acre. 

For Hoimyr, the economic payoff is less clear.

“It is really complex — even with all of the positive things that we’ve seen, we’re also constantly learning and trying new things, and with that comes making mistakes,” he says.

For him, the greatest benefit has been the mind shift. For one, he and his wife have started selling their beef directly to consumers as a means of capitalizing on the value they believe they are adding to the finished product. 

“The old adage of ‘you are what you eat’ — well, it applies to the things that we eat, too. It really does just keep snowballing until you become completely overwhelmed with how interconnected everything is,” he says. 

On Wunder’s farm, he says he’s been able to cut back on his input costs by up to 70 per cent as a result of his regenerative practices — and that number could be even higher for other farmers, depending on their practices and goals.  

However, the practices require additional time and effort, he says. On top of his time spent learning and trying new ways of doing things, the compost operation requires one dedicated person working part- or full-time during seeding, which is why he has partnered with a neighbour to run it.  

‘Buzzword’? Agriculture professor argues ‘regenerative’ is yet another marketing ploy

While most agree that regenerative practices have potential benefits for farmers — though they may not be viable for every operation — not everyone is convinced the ideas are actually new. 

For many, like Hoimyr, the term is just a punchier reiteration of an old idea — rebranding previous agriculture trends like “holistic management,” “soil health” and “sustainability.”

“It’s all the same people, all the same concepts. It’s just that ‘regenerative’ is pretty catchy.”

Stuart Smyth, a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Saskatchewan, agrees.

“Everybody wants to brand the latest buzzword to consumers. It was ‘sustainability’ for a while and I think it’s going to be ‘regenerative.’ ”

He believes these types of terms are largely championed by the food-processing sector.

“They’re constantly looking for the words that resonate with consumers, so [they] can brand their products accordingly, and then that ripples back up the supply chain. And really, it’s semantics, because it’s the economics at the farm level that are driving change, nothing else.”

Smyth also believes the term captures something farmers are already doing: making small, incremental improvements on their farms to boost efficiency and productivity — and this might include methods that do not fit tidily into images in consumers’ minds. For example, using crops developed with biotechnology, such as gene editing and genetic engineering.

Smyth also believes the emphasis on trendy concepts like regenerative agriculture can drive distrust of the agriculture sector, and overshadow how progressive Saskatchewan farmers have been in the area of environmental stewardship in recent decades. 

For example, he says a pre-publication study he co-authored shows Saskatchewan soils have seen a 40 per cent increase in soil organic matter over the last 35 years, because of the widespread adoption of no-till farming. Another recent study shows Canadian farmers produce some of the least carbon-intensive crops in the world. 

“I would argue that 97 or 98 per cent of our crop-producing land would align with that regenerative terminology or program,” Smyth says. “It won’t align with organics, but it certainly aligns with sustainable and regenerative.”

‘No farmer wants to be completely dependent on a chemical company’

For the farmers in the trenches, though, the labels don’t matter. They are thinking about economics, taking care of their farms longer-term and how to best balance these two priorities.    

“I think the reason so many of these practices are able to take hold is because most of them make sense,” Hoimyr says. “No farmer wants to be completely dependent on a chemical company or completely helpless as soon as the rainfall doesn’t fall at exactly the right time. These types of things just help move everybody in the right direction. Everyone can do a little bit better.”

For Wunder, regenerative techniques are just another “tool in the toolbox.”

“It’s about building soil health and resiliency for generations to come, and it’s going to look different on every operation. And everybody’s tools are going to be a little different.”

For Gavelin, introducing new practices on his farm was worth it for another reason — one that goes deeper than finances or crop yields. While he’s not sure if his two daughters — Rhys, 13, and Quinn, 12 — will want to take over the farm one day, he says he firmly believes he’s just taking care of the land until the next steward comes along.   

“We’re all worried about our pocketbooks, but we’re all depleting our soils. Our soils are going backwards. I did this for soil health.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Every fall, Jocelyn Velestuk grabs a shovel, goes out to the same field on her farm and digs up a sample from the top four inches of land.

“I like to feel the texture, see how it breaks apart in my hands. I just like to feel it myself,” Velestuk says. She farms with her husband, Jesse, and his parents on just over 50 quarters of land — more than 3,000 hectares or about 7,500 acres — in southeastern Saskatchewan, a scenic mixture of grain crops, pasture land, wetlands, rolling hills and natural habitat.

That rich four inches of dirt represents the “topsoil” and farmers, like Velestuk, have long had a deep connection with it. But today, more so than any generation before, farmers have data about their soils — seemingly endless supplies of it — made possible by modern technology.

Digital sensors measure soil quality. GPS systems guide tractors in fields. Drones can check the cows and sensors can monitor the fences. Artificial intelligence-powered weather forecasting has replaced The Farmers Almanac. High-tech options are increasingly present on the modern farm and advocates say they enable a level of precision not imaginable even 30 years ago. 

But Velestuk still likes to take her shovel to the soil. “Most of the magic happens in that top layer,” Velestuk says of topsoil and why she still likes to touch it with her own hands, despite the plethora of technologies available to check it for her. 

Indeed, that layer is home to microbes, concentrated soil organic carbon, and it’s where nutrient cycling happens — the exchange of nutrients from the soil to plants and living organisms and back again. It’s so busy in the topsoil, Velestuk likens its activity to Pacman, except instead of gobbling up power cookies, it’s nitrogen and carbon. 

That’s an analogy that was put in her head by one of her professors at the University of Saskatchewan in her first year of an undergraduate degree in agriculture — one that sparked something deep within Velestuk. 

“I was absolutely drawn in. It was just so cool. Since then, I haven’t been able to learn enough,” she says. 

She went on to finish a master’s degree in soil science and worked as an environmental consultant and agronomist before moving into a full-time farming and soil advocacy role.

It’s a good time to be advocating for soils. It has become clear in recent decades they have been underestimated and actually play an outsized role in storing carbon — and therefore mitigating climate change. Newer technology is also generating data about soil health that could allow for reductions in the amount of fertilizer used on crops, an important step as the federal government is developing a plan to reduce these emissions by 30 per cent in the next decade. 

In June, the federal government published a soil health study, recommending the development of a national strategy. This came a year after an industry-led national soil health strategy project, which aims to conserve soils within Canada’s 154 million acres of farmland, in conjunction with national climate change goals. 

But despite the optimism of these efforts, a few practical questions remain: namely, what impact, if any, will they have? How will this impact be measured? 

Increasingly, farmers like Velestuk are turning to technology such as sensors, drones and artificial intelligence to answer these questions. Soil monitoring systems and weather stations allow farmers to gather and analyze real-time, in-depth information about their soil nutrition, quality, moisture levels and more. Soil mapping technologies allow farmers to understand how the makeup of their soil varies throughout their farms. Velestuk believes tools like soil maps, which allow farmers to really understand the needs of their land, are the key to overall farm success. In a previous role as an agronomist (an advisor who helps farmers improve their efficiencies, sustainability and profitability), she helped clients adopt this technology on their farms. 

Mapping allows farmers to identify potential soil issues — such as compaction or salinity. Once farmers can identify the problem, they can adapt their management of it using precision agriculture tools such as variable-rate fertilizer applications — essentially, applying different types or amounts of fertilizer based on the needs of the soil in different parts of the field rather than just a blanket application. 

“Farms are getting bigger and with that, they’ll hire an agronomist and get more into the management of soil fertility,” Velestuk says, referring to the soil’s ability to grow healthy, high-yielding crops. “When it comes to farming, soil fertility is first and foremost in our minds, because that is how we get a healthy crop.”

In Saskatchewan, home to 40 per cent of Canada’s farmland, a growing community of soil-obsessed farmers like Velestuk and other industry members are invested in working toward these goals using increasingly high-tech solutions, which they argue are also in line with boosting farm productivity, efficiency and sustainability. 

On-farm weather stations: a deeper understanding of soil — and fun, to boot

Ten years ago, Jake Leguee thought buying a farm-specific weather station, with prices between a couple hundred dollars and upwards of $5,000, seemed like “a really good way to waste a bunch of money.”

But he did it anyway — and soon changed his mind. 

“I learned more about our soils in the first year of having that station than I have before, or since really,” Leguee says. He’s a partner in a 16,000-acre, third-generation family farm in Filmore, Sask., about an hour’s drive southeast of Regina. 

A tool of what’s known as precision agriculture — essentially, using data to be as efficient as possible with every product applied to a seed or crop — agricultural weather stations are designed to provide farmers with in-depth information about on-farm weather conditions like wind speed and direction, moisture, rainfall and humidity levels. This allows farmers to make informed decisions around what inputs — a term used for fertilizers, pesticides, water and more — to apply to their crops and when. 

For Leguee, who doesn’t have an irrigation system on his farm, a top input on his mind each year is water — and that’s where his weather station data has proven most valuable, showing him just how much moisture his soils will hold, and how deep their roots actually go. 

Data from one of his now-six weather stations, situated in a lentil field, suggested his lentil crops don’t draw water from deeper than 50 centimetres, while other crops will draw from 70 to 100 centimetres or more. 

“Now I know why it seems there’s always a little bit of extra moisture after a lentil year, because that water is still there. It’s just down a little bit deeper,” he says 

Weather stations are just one of a suite of new technologies that are facilitating a deeper understanding of soils for farmers. Leguee attributes his “early adopter” attitude in part to his dad, who is still active in the farm business and has always been “curious” about new practices and technologies. 

“This stuff is fun for me,” Leguee says, adding it’s also good business, as most farmers strive to use the minimum amount of inputs required for maximum efficiency. 

“I don’t want to put more stuff out there to enhance crop yield if I’m not going to get a return on that investment.” 

At the same time, there are a growing number of biological products on the market that use natural ingredients like bacteria and plant hormones to protect and nurture plant health. These aim to increase the efficiency of fertilizers in the soil, enhance nutrients and improve overall plant quality and yield while moving away from more conventional agro-chemical products, like synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. That includes glyphosate, the active ingredient in some of the most widely used herbicides around the world, including Roundup. 

Mike Palmier, an agronomist based in west-central Saskatchewan, believes biological products, combined with the right technology, could completely revolutionize farmers’ relationships with soil. 

“I honestly think we’re still at the starting stages of the revolution of soil health,” he says. 

Palmier leads a team of 15 agronomists gearing up to meet growing demand for technology to monitor soil health. They have a fleet of half-ton trucks with hydraulic probes, used to carefully extract samples from topsoil. Samples are then sent off for testing to better understand their biological composition. 

Palmier says there are only a minority of farmers and agronomists in the province exploring the potential of biological products at this level, but he believes that will change. He also believes this could represent a major shift for an industry that has been heavily reliant on chemical-based crop protection products for the last 50 years. 

“We’re still at the very beginning stages of understanding what’s possible with the biologicals.” 

Canadian farmers are already innovators — but there’s still room for improvement

There’s a lot of excitement around the potential for high-tech farming to drive environmental improvements in the global agriculture sector, with some estimates suggesting a potential 13-billion-tonne decrease in the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions. 

There have already been significant improvements in Saskatchewan soils in the last 30 years, largely due to the move to no-till soil management, which rejects the idea that soil must be churned up after one crop has been harvested to make way for the next season. Because it minimizes disruptions, no-till farming improves carbon storage and biodiversity.

Recent research has shown Canadian farmers already have some of the most sustainable farming practices in the world. Canadian farmers already tend to be more innovative than their global peers, but there are still barriers to farmers adopting new technologies — most prominently cost and lack of knowledge. 

Indeed, there remain challenges to increasing sustainability.

There’s also the consideration that nearly 40 per cent of Canada’s farmland these days is rented, versus owned (and that number is increasing). That means those farming this land are likely less concerned with long-term soil-health initiatives — as opposed to on a family farm, like Leguee’s, where the mission is literally to leave the land in better shape for the next generation. 

Currently, only about 65 per cent of Canadian farmers report they are following best practices for optimizing their fertilizer use.

Jeff Schoenau, a professor of soil fertility at the University of Saskatchewan and an expert in the area of climate-smart farming solutions, believes that optimizing the use of these products is a critical goal for the industry. In his mind, this means: “really making sure that that nitrogen gets into the plant, where it’s needed, rather than hanging around in the soil or going through some type of transformation where it ends up being lost into the air, as a greenhouse gas or lost to water as a contaminant.”

And technology has a big role to play in that.

Schoenau believes any initiatives in soil health need to recognize the concept itself is complex. Having taught the subject for 35 years now, Schoenau defines healthy soil as having the ability to sustain and promote growth of organisms not only within the soil — but also those above it: plants, animals and humans. 

“It’s fulfilling the important role of acting as a reservoir for water, for nutrients — and also acting as an environmental filter for contaminants. I mean, I could go on and on.”

‘We’ve completely revolutionized the way we farm’

One thing that Schoenau believes firmly is soil health is a matter of public interest. In light of this, he is happy to see it becoming a more mainstream topic. 

“A couple years ago, people said ‘it’s just dirt.’ ”

For this reason, he believes, if nothing else, the public awareness component of ongoing national soil health initiatives will be valuable.

“Any effort to bring it to the forefront is really important. It brings awareness,” he says, adding he hopes it will also generate awareness of the link between healthy soil and healthy animals, plants and humans.

“What you find in food, in a lot of cases, you can trace back to what’s going on in the soil.”

For Velestuk, any attention given to soil health — by government, the public or the agriculture industry — is a win. But she also believes the key to driving change will be orchestrating a cohesive, long-term approach. 

“We can’t say, ‘We have to create a whole new way of looking at soil,’ ” she says. “We need to build on what we have already.”

Velestuk points to the progress made with advancements in recent years. “We have come such a long way with mapping, learning about soil organic matter and soil fertility and adapting our different practices and how we look at soil as our cropping systems have evolved,” she says. “Soil health, to me, is bringing it all together.”

“The Prairies have a really cool story. We’ve completely revolutionized the way we farm. And it is amazing.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.