Farmers struggling with patches of land in their fields that eat into their profits have an ally in researchers at Olds College of Agriculture & Technology.
“We’ve been working for the last three years on this problem of marginal land,” said Daniel Stefner, Project Lead for Smart Agriculture at Olds College Centre for Innovation (OCCI).
“I’ve seen estimates that five to 10 per cent of cultivated farmland is marginal in Western Canada, but it’s hard to pin down because it depends on how you define it. Just from my own experience of driving drills, sprayers and harvest equipment, I would say there is marginal land in most fields in the prairies.”
Olds College and Farm Credit Canada (FCC) have partnered on a research project to find better ways to identify and manage unproductive or marginal farmland. When these areas are conventionally farmed, they often lose money and can even suffer soil degradation.
The project aims to prevent further soil degradation and a widening of the marginal land’s footprint. Although it might be the first instinct of producers, attempting to restore this land so it can continue to grow crops may not make financial sense compared to converting it, said Stefner.
“We might be decreasing some of our revenue because we’re taking the land out of production, but in many ways, we’re also increasing our profitability because now we’re losing less money in that area.”
The research project involves a total of about 11 acres of marginal land in two fields. They’re located at the Olds College Smart Farm, which is a high-tech, living laboratory for crop, livestock and agricultural technology research spread over 3,000 acres.
Researchers are applying an approach called precision conservation. It involves using precision agriculture equipment to apply specific targeted best management practices to marginal land to see if they can improve soil health and overall sustainability.
“There are many different types of marginal land, but we’re specifically talking about economically marginal land,” said Stefner. “These are places on your farm where you’ve got your fingers crossed that hopefully some plants will grow, and there can be many causes for why they’re marginal.”
These can range from erosion and drought to soil compaction and extremes in pH, he said. “I put my inputs down, I spray it, I harvest it and the revenue generated off that piece of land is less than the cost of my inputs.”
Part of the problem is the profitability of any given piece of land can not only vary substantially from one part of a field to another, but also from year to year, said Stefner. Factors like the cost of fuel and fertilizer, along with unexpected weather extremes and fluctuating commodity prices, can cause an acre that’s profitable one year to lose money the next, he said.
Software can help farmers keep track of long-term financial records, allowing them to create maps to identify marginal land, he said. “We’re looking at three to five years with the maps to make sure it wasn’t a one-off year.”
For the 2024 season, a three-acre area was established with perennial grasses and legumes within the Steckler Farm — part of the Olds College Smart Farm. Meanwhile, eight acres were converted in Field 18 to perennial flowers to serve as pollinator habitats.
The initial economic results were encouraging. While the conversion in the Steckler Field saw an initial profitability decrease of $368.92 per acre in the first year, the pollinator habitat in Field 18 saw an increase of $12.34 per converted acre.
These values incorporate and apply the entire cost of establishment in the first year. Researchers anticipate profitability will continue to improve because they do not anticipate any additional establishment costs in future years.
Stefner said the environmental benefits were immediate. The pollinator habitat saw flowering plants within six weeks of seeding that provided a diverse food source for insects.
More than 7,000 insects from over 40 families were identified, with peak activity in late summer. Although the area was not cut for hay, measurements conducted at the site toward the end of the growing season estimated dry hay yields of more than one tonne per acre, despite only being seeded 10 weeks earlier.
Stefner said the study also highlighted that while some changes — like improved soil health — take multiple seasons to accomplish, the establishment of perennial plants in these areas benefits ecological outputs and overall field profitability. Although the results for this year’s growing season are still coming in, he expected they will further validate the previous results.
“We’re essentially looking at transforming these areas from profit drains into productive assets, whether that’s through improved soil health or by creating valuable pollinator habitats. It’s about making smart, data-driven decisions to increase overall farm profitability and sustainability.”
The research at Olds College is slated to continue until 2027. The findings will be used by FCC to better understand the effects of removing marginal land from continuous production, said Roland McFadden, Sustainable Finance and Insights Strategist at FCC.
“Each farm is different, and each field in that farm contains different topographies, microclimates and growing conditions. One broad brush stroke is not going to fix everything, so the more information and data we learn, the more options we can give to producers.”
The Smart Farm is working towards providing producers with real-life applied research to help them make informed decisions about implementing technology in their own operations.