Cattle Country: University of Manitoba researchers are exploring perennial cropping strategies to reduce GHG emissions on-farm from a multi-disciplinary perspective.
The following article was written by Peter Frohlich with contributions from Michelle Carkner, Joanne Thiessen Martens, and the LEAP team from the University of Manitoba and the University of Saskatchewan. It was originally published in Cattle Country in November 2024.
Researchers from the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences (FAFS) at the University of Manitoba, University of Saskatchewan and several partner organizations from across the prairies have received new funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to explore increasing the use of perennial cropping practices. The new project is called LEAP (Leveraging Ecosystems to transform Agriculture on the Prairies) and Manitoba Beef Producers are among several industry partners supporting the initiative. The goal of the project is to generate information, tools and management practices required to create sustainable, resilient and profitable net-zero emissions farming systems using perennial cropping strategies – and systems that mimic some of the features of perennial systems – including those that integrate livestock production.
Perennial cropping systems
Perennial agriculture is the cultivation of crops that live longer than two years without the need for replanting each year. It includes the use of perennial forages, as well as new perennial grain crops. Perennial crops have numerous benefits as they maintain soil health, reduce erosion, and provide habitats for beneficial insects, wildlife and more. Typically, perennial crops (e.g. alfalfa) are used to support livestock production. However, this project is much broader as it also looks at perennial systems that are not exclusively dependent on animal production.
Perennialization can refer to the process of replacing annual crops (e.g. wheat) with perennial crops (e.g, alfalfa). But it also includes adding perennial “function” to the landscape in other ways. The term “function” is meant to add a certain quality (for example, year-round soil cover) that serves a beneficial purpose in a cropping system. In addition to environmental benefits from perennial crops, perennial function can be added to annual cropping systems by planting cover crops, perennial pollinator strips, and maintaining or enhancing natural perennial features like wetlands, hedgerows or riparian zones on the landscape. Perennialization is perhaps the most powerful ecological tool in the quest for net zero.
A LEAP forward
During the four-year LEAP project, five multidisciplinary research teams will explore perennialized cropping systems from social and biophysical perspectives. The research will include an assessment of current and new cropping practices on a ‘perennial spectrum’ and investigate the potential for farms to adopt new approaches in the future. Alongside consultations with partners, who would help inform research objectives, the teams will explore farmers’ experiences with perennialized cropping strategies and their willingness to adopt these strategies. Additionally, researchers will document the social barriers to adoption and how policy may be developed to address adoption challenges. A special focus will be placed on Indigenous perspectives and what specific research and policy considerations need to be made within an Indigenous context as landowners and managers. At the end of the project, the goal is to create realistic, attainable, and economically viable management and policy recommendations to elevate farming to a sustainable, region-specific system for the future.
Landscape analysis
During the planning process of the project, a consistent challenge that the team heard from farmers, producer groups, and agricultural policy advocates was lack of robust data about how well different farming systems help to meet environmental goals. Innovative management approaches are already being used by farmers and land managers across the prairies. The landscape team’s objective is to generate data from real farms and quantify the impact of including different degrees of perennialization. This team of 12 researchers is led by Dr. Joanne Thiessen Martens, with researchers from the University of Saskatchewan, and four departments within the University of Manitoba. The team will monitor and quantify greenhouse gas emissions, crop productivity, biodiversity, soil health and how perennialization strategies that are already being implemented by producers support agronomic and environmental goals. The activity will compare commercial fields with low, medium, and high levels of perennialization practices on different soil types, with the goal of generating a large real-world dataset that will help to assess the roles of site conditions and management in meeting those goals. This data will be used to predict future scenarios using computer models and to generate tools to guide site-specific adoption of perennialization strategies.
Field experiments to assess net-zero farming systems
Replicated research trials that run in tandem with on-farm sampling provides a unique opportunity to ‘dig deeper’ into the “why’s” and “how’s” of different dynamics in cropping systems. Led by Dr. Yvonne Lawley in collaboration with other departments at FAFS and the University of Saskatchewan, this team will investigate methods for implementing “functional benefits” of perennialized systems, such as cover crops, perennial grains, pollinator strips on marginal lands, and intercropping strategies. These strategies bring the potential to perennialize annual crop rotations by maintaining living plant cover into the spring and fall of the short prairie growing season. They also reduce fall tillage and create new opportunities for integrating crop and livestock production. The findings from these studies will be particularly useful for producers who want to transition to more perennialized systems. A bonus opportunity in the study will be to compare the energy use and carbon emissions of both a diesel and an electric tractor that will be used throughout the project.
Future farm scenarios
Farmer and partner input and data generated by the landscape and field research teams will direct and drive the modelling activities undertaken by the Future Farm Scenarios Team. The modelling team will be led by Dr. Marcos Cunha Cordeiro and supported by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) data scientists. They will use the Canadian-tailored modelling program Holos, developed by AAFC. The Holos model is a whole-farm modelling software that estimates GHG emissions based on production and weather data. This work will generate Canadian data that will allow farmers, researchers, and partners to explore transformative agricultural “what if“ scenarios. Modelling scenarios will provide answers to questions about how different perennialization strategies could be used to achieve agronomic and environmental goals consistent with net-zero agriculture. These scenarios and outputs can then guide policy initiatives to support farmers making changes in their production practices.
First Nations farming systems
The First Nations Self-Determined Farming Systems Team, led by Dr. Melissa Arcand at the University of Saskatchewan and Dr. Kyle Bobiwash at the University of Manitoba, will engage First Nations communities. First Nations communities are keepers of traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom who play an important role in maintaining and implementing reduced emission practices in agriculture. First Nations groups are reconsidering their role in managing their agricultural lands. They are re-thinking what sustainable agriculture will look like and how agriculture can be practiced to fulfill the goals of food security, livelihood, and reclamation of cultural traditions. The team will work with First Nations communities to understand the processes of diversity, integration and perenniality from a First Nations perspective. Together they will co-design beneficial management practices that achieve First Nations-defined goals and co-develop a research and adoption framework that First Nations can adapt and apply for designing self-determined farming systems.
Farmers are a key part of the research process
The Farmer Engagement Team, led by Dr. Meagan King and Dr. Kyle Bobiwash (UManitoba) in collaboration with the Canadian Centre for Agricultural Wellbeing at the University of Guelph, will capture and explore the invaluable lived experience of settler and First Nations farmers and land managers to ensure that they are all a key part of the project.
The team will identify connections between farm management, farmer well-being (physical and mental), biodiversity, policy, and sustainability. Farmer well-being is important to investigate because it may be related to on-farm decision making, the acceptability and adoption of various practices and preferred ways of sharing knowledge. The information gathered by the Farmer Engagement Team will assist in the design of the project’s methodology and it will help to identify producer perspectives regarding changes to current farm management practices that can be successfully implemented at the farm level.
How producers can be involved in the project
Farmers and land managers can be a part of the LEAP project by becoming one of the sampling sites in the landscape activity, or participate in our farmer wellbeing study. Researchers will collect information and samples from fields with different types of management history, ranging from annual crops to perennial crops. They are particularly interested in the “in-between” fields – those that have some diversification or “perennialization” with cover crops, perennials in rotation or other approaches. The research team is especially interested in fields that support grazing livestock.
As a farmer participating in this study, you will be part of a research network across Manitoba and Saskatchewan, linking farmers, researchers, and partner organizations who want to advance sustainable agriculture. Participants will receive data on soil, crop, and biodiversity measurements from their fields and a summary of data from the farm network. You will also be invited to attend field tours and participate in other project events and activities.
For more information on how to be a part of the project and the other researchers and partners involved in this project, please visit: https://www.umanitoba.ca/agricultural-food-sciences/leap
Project Partners include the Manitoba Beef Producers, Keystone Agricultural Producers, Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association, Nature United, Manitoba Agriculture, National Farmers Union, and Ducks Unlimited Canada.