Alberta
‘The saving grace for agriculture’: Farmers look to irrigation amid climate woes
CALGARY — Sean Stanford’s wheat farm just south of Lethbridge, Alta. falls within the far left corner of Palliser’s Triangle — an expanse of prairie grassland encompassingmuch of southeast Alberta, a swath of southern Saskatchewan, and the southwest corner of Manitoba.
The area is named for explorer Capt. John Palliser, who in 1857, famously declared the entire region a wasteland — so hot and arid that no crops would ever grow.
More than 160 years later, with parts of the prairie provinces suffering through another summer of drought conditions, Stanford’s farm is certainly dry.
“I think we’ve had three inches of rain since we started seeding. It’s been pretty dismal, honestly,” he said in an interview in July.
But Stanford is growing crops, thanks to a series of small sprinklers, attached to a large pipe and powered by an electric motor that disperse water from a nearby irrigation canal over some of his fields.
“Hopefully this fall I’m going to put up a little more irrigation on a couple more fields of mine,” Stanford said, adding he expects his non-irrigated, or dryland, acres to yield about a third of what his irrigated acres yield this year.
“You’re able to mitigate your risks a lot more. Moisture, in my mind, is the No. 1 driving factor in making a crop or not.”
Drought insurance
The economy of southern Alberta would not exist as it does today without irrigation. As early as the late 1800s, public and private investors began to build a vast network of dams, reservoirs, canals and pipelines that opened the area up for settlement and turned John Palliser’s so-called wasteland into a viable farming region.
According to the Alberta WaterPortal Society, there are now more than 8,000 kilometres of conveyance works and more than 50 water storage reservoirs devoted to managing 625,000 hectares of irrigated land in the province.
And while that’s just over five per cent of the province’s total agricultural land base, it accounts for 19 per cent of Alberta’s gross primary agricultural production. Farmers in irrigation districts are able to produce high-value, specialized crops such as sugar beets and greenhouse vegetables.
“There are places that we simply wouldn’t have an agriculture industry if irrigation wasn’t happening — parts of the province are so dry that we wouldn’t be growing anything,” said Richard Phillips, general manager of the Bow River Irrigation District, which owns and operates several hundred kilometres of earth canals and water pipelines, as well as several reservoirs, in the Vauxhall area southeast of Calgary.
“We certainly wouldn’t be growing the crops that are being grown.”
In drier-than-normal years — like the one southeast Alberta is experiencing right now — irrigation is often the only thing standing in the way of full-fledged agricultural disaster, Phillips added.
“If it’s a drought year, dryland produces next to nothing, whereas the irrigated areas are still producing excellent crops,” Phillips said.
“It’s great drought insurance, if you want to think of it that way.”
A growing need
According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s most recent drought monitor report, 76 per cent of the country’s agricultural landscape is either abnormally dry or experiencing moderate to severe drought this summer.
Some farmers, depending on the region, are dealing with their third or even fourth consecutive year of drought — with 2021 being an exceptionally bad year that saw production of some crops in Canada fall to their lowest level in more than a decade.
That’s part of the reason behind a recent push to modernize and expand irrigation infrastructure in this country.
In Alberta, in 2020, the province and the federal government through the Canada Infrastructure Bank announced a $932-million project to rehabilitate older irrigation equipment in the province, as well as construct or enlarge up to four off-stream irrigation storage reservoirs.
Saskatchewan has also announced a $4-billion project to double the amount irrigable land in the province.
Agriculture Canada predicts that changes in temperature and precipitation patterns due to climate change will increase reliance on irrigation and water-resource management in years to come — most notably across the Prairies and the interior of British Columbia, but “also in regions where there has not traditionally been a need to irrigate.”
Jodie Parmar, head of project development for Western Canada with the Canada Infrastructure Bank, said even Ontario and some of the Atlantic provinces have expressed interest in exploring irrigation projects recently.
“When I engaged in 2020 with provincial governments, in Western Canada in particular, what I heard from them was the need to focus on agriculture and agri-food,” Parmar said.
“And within that sub-sector, irrigation was their top ask.”
The limits of irrigation
Parmer said irrigation can not only be used to bring water to areas that don’t have enough, it can also improve the usage of the water that is available.
With climate change, for example, glaciers high in the Rocky Mountains are melting earlier in the season — and not at the time of year when farmers actually need the resulting runoff water. With irrigation, the water from those early-melting glaciers can be diverted and harnessed in reservoirs to be used for agriculture when it’s actually needed.
But not everyone believes irrigation can solve all of agriculture’s woes — at least, not without a price.
Even with effective water use management, there’s a limit to how much water can be drawn from a single source — and a limit to how much expansion of irrigation the public will tolerate, said Maryse Bourgault, an agronomist at the University of Saskatchewan
“In Saskatchewan, (advocates) talk about Lake Diefenbaker being used for irrigation. But Lake Diefenbaker is also very much involved in tourism,” she said.
“So how will the general public feel about us draining Lake Diefenbaker for irrigation?”
Bourgault added that over-irrigating can also raise the water table of the soil, and when that water evaporates, it leaves salts behind. She said in parts of the world, landscapes and ecosystems have suffered long-term damage.
“So I don’t believe (that it is a solution),” Bourgault said.
“I think at some point you’re going to overdo it. Even if you have the best management, at some point, nature happens.”
Agricultural lifeline
Irrigation is currently responsible for about 70 per cent of freshwater withdrawals worldwide. According to the Princeton Environmental Institute, about 90 per cent of water taken for residential and industrial uses eventually returns to the aquifer, but only about one-half of the water used for irrigation is reusable.
The remainder evaporates, is lost through leaky pipes or otherwise removed from the water cycle.
Bourgault said instead of expanding irrigation, farmers should be seeking to mitigate the effects of climate change through improved crop genetics and alternative farming practices like cover cropping, which can reduce the amount of moisture lost through evaporation.
Still, for farmers like Stanford, who have spent much of this past summer anxiously watching heat-shimmering skies for any hint of rain, irrigation is nothing less than a lifeline.
“If they could get some irrigation acres opened up all the way to the Saskatchewan border and beyond, that would be a huge benefit,” Stanford said.
“To have more moisture, if it’s not going to rain anymore around here, is going to be the saving grace for agriculture in this area.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 13, 2023.
Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press
Alberta
Fortis et Liber: Alberta’s Future in the Canadian Federation
From the C2C Journal
By Barry Cooper, professor of political science, University of Calgary
Canada’s western lands, wrote one prominent academic, became provinces “in the Roman sense” – acquired possessions that, once vanquished, were there to be exploited. Laurentian Canada regarded the hinterlands as existing primarily to serve the interests of the heartland. And the current holders of office in Ottawa often behave as if the Constitution’s federal-provincial distribution of powers is at best advisory, if it needs to be acknowledged at all. Reviewing this history, Barry Cooper places Alberta’s widely criticized Sovereignty Act in the context of the Prairie provinces’ long struggle for due constitutional recognition and the political equality of their citizens. Canada is a federation, notes Cooper. Provinces do have rights. Constitutions do mean something. And when they are no longer working, they can be changed.
Alberta
30 million contraband cigarettes valued at $25 million dollars seized in Alberta
New release from Alberta Gaming Liquor and Cannabis (AGLC)
Record setting contraband tobacco seizures result from AGLC investigations
Alberta Gaming Liquor and Cannabis (AGLC) recently concluded several investigations which netted two of the largest contraband tobacco seizures in Alberta history. The combined total of the contraband tobacco seized was 154,800 cartons of contraband cigarettes (30.7 million individual cigarettes). These seizures are a result of the work conducted by AGLC’s Tobacco Enforcement Unit with the assistance of provincial law enforcement agencies.
- In a January 2024 investigation, approximately 43,500 cartons (8.7 million individual cigarettes) were seized. This equates to $7 million in retail value with a provincial tax avoidance of $2.4 million. This included the seizure of 15,000 grams of contraband shisha.
- In April of 2024, 60 wrapped pallets were seized from a warehouse setting netting a total of 111,300 cartons of contraband cigarettes (22 million individual cigarettes) which equates to over $18 million in retail value with a provincial tax avoidance of $6.6 million.
- Criminal Charges are pending in both cases.
“These are significant contraband tobacco investigations involving individuals that are part of organized networks whose proceeds defraud Albertans millions of dollars in tax revenue. AGLC will continue to work with our partners to investigate and disrupt the individuals and organizations involved in these illegal activities as part our commitment to a strong contraband tobacco enforcement program in Alberta.”
- Gary Peck, Vice President, Regulatory Services, AGLC
“Contraband tobacco hurts law abiding businesses that follow the rules, and it costs Albertans millions each year from lost tax revenue. Our government is committed to keeping illegal tobacco off the streets and ensuring that the sale of tobacco products comply with the law.”
- Dale Nally, Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction
Over the last nine months, AGLC’s Tobacco Enforcement unit has seized an estimated 35 million contraband cigarettes and 115,000 grams of contraband shisha from across the province. The total potential lost tax revenue is estimated to be more than $10.1 million.
Contraband tobacco:
- is any tobacco product that does not comply with federal and provincial laws related to importation, marking, manufacturing, stamping and payment of duties and taxes;
- comes from four main sources: illegal manufacturers, counterfeits, tax-exempt diversions and resale of stolen legal tobacco; and
- can be recognized by the absence of a red (Alberta) or peach/light tan (Canada) stamp bearing the “DUTY PAID CANADA DROIT ACQUITTÉ” on packages of cigarettes and cigars or pouches of tobacco.
In addition to lost revenues that may otherwise benefit Albertans, illegally manufactured products also pose public health and safety risks as they lack regulatory controls and inspections oversight.
Albertans who suspect illegal tobacco production, packaging and/or trafficking are encouraged to contact AGLC’s Tobacco Enforcement Unit at 1-800-577-2522 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).
Under a Memorandum of Understanding with Alberta Treasury Board and Finance, AGLC enforces the Tobacco Tax Act and conducts criminal investigations related to the possession, distribution and trafficking of contraband tobacco products. In 2022-23, provincial revenue from tobacco taxes was approximately $522 million.
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