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21-021-MIE |
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ArticleGrazing Management in CanadaIntroduction IntroductionThe management of grazing on Canadian farms essentially involves the control of livestock access to areas of pasture land. Correct management of pasture land within a particular region allows for a sustainable increase in pasture forage production and improved pasture forage quality. This permits higher stocking rates per unit of pasture land and improved livestock weight gain and ultimately results in greater financial returns to the farmer. Additionally, sound pasture management controls livestock access to riparian areas. This protects the areas adjacent to surface water bodies, improving the quality of the water consumed by the farmer's livestock and providing for the long-term sustainability of the surface water body. Apart from the financial advantages that accrue to the farms themselves, sound grazing management within a region affords more general benefits for society as a whole. Correct grazing management practices allow for the widespread improvement in water quality and improved wildlife habitat, particularly aquatic and wetland habitats. This helps both the maintenance of biodiversity and the protection of "countryside" for aesthetic human enjoyment. The 2001 FEMS asked several questions concerning the management of grazing systems on Canadian farms, including whether a system of rotational grazing was practiced, amount of grass carry-over, the frequency of re-seeding or rejuvenating seeded pasture and the extent of the implementation of beneficial management practices for grazing management. This work does not reveal the environmental impact of various grazing practices undertaken on Canadian farms and care should be taken in interpreting the results. In particular, it must be borne in mind that not every sound grazing management technique is equally important everywhere throughout Canada. A desirable practice may be lacking in a particular area not because of disinterest or a lack of knowledge or resources on behalf of the farm operator, but because that practice is not as important due to favourable physical conditions. It should be further noted that the data presented here refers to the year 2001. This was a particularly hot, dry summer and these conditions could have influenced some of the results presented in this work. In order to exclude the practices on farms where livestock grazing was only a secondary (and therefore, presumably, a minor) activity only data from farms that reported obtaining 51% or more of their gross farm receipts from either beef production or dairy production and that also reported having grazing cattle are presented here.2 This allows a better estimation of grazing management practices by, in most cases, limiting the data to farms where grazing livestock forms the major activity on that farm. For the sake of brevity, beef and dairy farms with grazing livestock will simply be referred to as farms throughout the rest of this paper. In all cases, the farms are divided into size categories (based on the annual gross farm receipts).3 Moreover, much of the data is divided by province in order to assess geographical variation in grazing practices. Grazing management practicesPattern of grazing across Canada Pattern of grazing across CanadaIn 2001, the FEMS data show that there were 66,160 beef and dairy farms with grazing cattle. Fully 29.8% of these farms were in Alberta, and 22.4% were in Ontario. Only 3.6% were found in the Atlantic Provinces. This geographical discrepancy was even more evident among larger farms. Alberta accounted for nearly one-third of all the farms that had gross farm receipts in excess of $500,000 per annum. Ontario had a little over one-quarter of these farms. Quebec had the highest proportion of middle-sized farms (26.6% of farms with gross farm receipts between $100,000 and $249,999) but only 15.5% of the largest farms and 11.6% of the smallest farms. This overall provincial pattern should be borne in mind in the following discussion.
Rotational grazingRotational grazing is the practice of moving grazing cattle to different pastures or grazing paddocks throughout the growing season to allow the vegetation a period of rest and seed production. Rotational grazing requires more inputs in the sense of the labour, time and planning required to move livestock around and the overall planning of rotation strategies, but allows for the improvement of the pasture by permitting selected areas time to regenerate. The accompanying table shows the number of farms that reported having a system of rotational grazing in place in 2001 by revenue class and province. The table also shows farms with a system of rotational grazing as a percentage of all farms, within each revenue class category, in that particular area. This reveals something of the regional pattern of this practice.
The share of farms that use a system of rotational grazing varied by both province and revenue class. In Canada, 69% of the largest farms (greater than $500,000 in gross farm receipts) had some form of rotational grazing, whereas 80% of farms with gross farm receipts between $25,000 and $49,999 adopted this practice. Amongst the provinces, Alberta had the highest share of farms using rotational grazing for all sales classes above $50,000. Below this size of farm, British Columbia has the highest proportion. Overall, Ontario tended to have the lowest share of farms using a system of rotational grazing. This was particularly apparent in the $250,000 to $499,999 revenue class where only 39.6% of Ontario farms adopted this practice.Grass "carry over"Grass "carry over" is the length of grass that is left on the pasture at the end of the grazing season. The amount of carry over gives an indication of the grazing intensity on that pasture. While optimal grass carry over varies by region, generally longer grass carry over helps maintain healthier pasture. The share of farms with carry over of less than one inch broadly declines with increasing farm size (from 24.9% of the smallest farms to 17% of the largest). In contrast, the share of farms with carry over of two to four inches broadly increases with farm size (from just over 30% of the smallest farms to 43% of the largest). These results would tend to indicate that the larger farms are doing a better job at managing their pastures. Interestingly, Quebec bucks the national trend. For grass carry over of two to four inches the share of farms declines between the second largest and the largest farms (from 43.4% of the $250,000 to $499,999 category to 36.5% of the greater than $500,000 category).
Re-seeding of seeded pastureThe re-seeding of seeded pasture replenishes the grass content of pasture that has become depleted and bare or weed infested. Thus, the need to re-seed can indicate a deteriorated pasture often caused by heavy grazing pressure. The highest proportion of farms in Canada re-seeded every five to ten years (around 30% for all farm sizes). A very small proportion of farms re-seed more frequently than every three years, or less frequently than every 15 years. While there was little evident pattern when the data was broken down by farm size, there appears to be a slight reduction in the frequency of re-seeding with increasing farm size. Those provinces that have a higher proportion of farms reporting native pasture have a lower intensity of re-seeding of seeded pasture. This is particularly evident in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Conversely, only a small proportion of Quebec farms report native pasture (under 10% for most size categories) whereas a relatively high proportion report re-seeding in both the three to five year and five to ten year categories.
Beneficial management practices for grazing managementBeneficial management practices (BMPs) are a set of farm production or management practices designed to reduce environmental risks and realize environmental benefits. Because of the differing ecological and agronomic conditions found from region to region there are a wide variety of definitions of BMPs. Moreover, the BMPs that are adopted can vary from farm to farm according to the physical, financial and technological components unique to each operation. However, they all encompass similar objectives: managing production systems to achieve environmental goals while maintaining acceptable levels of economic returns. Grazing BMPs are designed to prevent over-grazing and associated pasture degradation together with the protection of riparian areas and surface water bodies. At the Canada level, the share of farms that reported full or partial implementation of grazing BMPs tended to increase with increasing farm size (from just under 42% of farms with revenues below $25,000 to nearly 62% of farms with revenues between $250,000 and $499,999). However, there was a slight drop off for the largest farms (just under 58% for farms with revenues above $500,000). Not surprisingly, the share of farmers reporting being unfamiliar with grazing BMPs for their region showed a reverse trend with farm size (declining from a little over 47% of the smallest farms to just under 28% of farms with revenues between $250,000 and $499,999). However, the share of the largest farms reporting being unfamiliar with grazing BMPs for their region stood at almost one third.
Area of pasture and number of livestockThe sections above have used farm size to give an indication of the level of adoption of various grazing management practices throughout Canada. To further explore cattle grazing practice, some estimates of the area of pasture and the number of animals involved were generated.4 As before, the results were divided according to farm size in order to facilitate comparison to the results of the earlier sections. In this section, farms that identified themselves as feedlots or finishing operations were excluded from the data set. For Canada as a whole, the share of native pasture tends to increase with increasing farm size. For all farm sizes the proportion of tame or seeded pasture varies between one-fifth and one-third of total pasture land. Once again, the statistical tables show some regional diversity.5 While the available data is limited by confidentiality and reliability issues, it can be seen that the proportion of tame or seeded pasture is much higher in Quebec and Ontario than it is in the Prairie provinces.
To gain a further insight into Canadian grazing management the stocking rate (number of cattle per acre of pasture land) was determined. Again, the results were calculated for Canada and the provinces and broken down by farm size. At the Canada level, there was little variation with farm size. There were about 0.3 head of grazed cattle for every acre of pasture land.
Yet again, there is a notable regional variation.5 The supplementary tables show that the Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario exhibit a higher stocking rate in comparison to the Prairie provinces. Moreover, the Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario exhibit a marked increase in cattle per acre with increasing farm size, reaching a high of nearly three and one half head of grazing cattle per acre on the largest farms in Ontario. It is interesting to compare this very high stocking rate on the largest farms in these provinces with the high share of farms reporting a grass carry over length of two to four inches. Eastern and Central Canada can support higher stocking rates while maintaining high levels of grass carry over because of more favourable moisture conditions. In Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta the results vary between approximately 0.2 and 0.3 cattle for every acre of pasture (the exception to this is the largest farms in Manitoba and Saskatchewan which have approximately 0.5 head of grazing cattle per acre and the largest farms in Alberta which have 0.15 head of grazing cattle per acre). Unlike the Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario, there is no obvious increase in stocking rate with increasing farm size. SummaryThis paper has used data from the 2001 FEMS and the 2001 Census of Agriculture to examine a number of issues pertaining to grazing practices and management on Canadian farms. By limiting the data to farms that realize 51% or more of their gross farm receipts from beef or dairy and that also report having grazing cattle a more precise estimate of the various practices can be obtained. The results show that:
It must be remembered that the information in this paper refers to just one year (2001). As such it provides a "baseline" for data relating to grazing practices on Canadian livestock farms. It is important that the survey and analysis are repeated at regular intervals in order to assess changes in grazing management practices. This will serve to improve farm environmental data collection and dissemination projects and increase their value with respect to policy direction and implementation. 2 Sheep and horse grazing was not included in this analysis due to data limitations. 3 The sampling design of the FEMS excluded farms with gross farm receipts of less than $10,000. However, some farms may have reported receipts of less than $10,000 in the year the survey was conducted. Where this occurred, these farms have been included in the "Less than $25,000" category. 4 In this section, FEMS results have been combined with the 2001 Census of Agriculture pasture area and cattle number estimates. These extended calculations will continue to be referred to as FEMS results. |
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