Precision Agriculture at Olds College

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2017-2018 Annual Report Highlight

A Smart Farm uses GPS, soil scanning and a number of other technologies connected to the internet to employ precision agriculture—that is, being selective with farm management techniques to increase the quality and quantity of food production.

With support from AREF, Olds College is developing a multimedia Smart Ag Digital Story Map to showcase the science and technology used on a Smart Farm. “It harnesses the power of both maps and stories to capture the different perspectives of our Olds College Smart Farm partners,” says Jason Bradley, the director of Smart Ag at Olds College. “We’re capturing the value proposition of each product or service provided to show how the technology works and how it interacts and performs as part of our connected farm or smart ag ecosystem.” Agriculture and agrifood production are predicted to be among the top drivers of Alberta’s future GDP growth so it’s important to help educate people about new technologies in the sector. “Stories and maps have been how we have shared knowledge and information since the dawn of time,” says Bradley. “The project is validating the best practises on our farm and helps us prove to those who will inherit this land that we stewarded it to the best of our knowledge and capability.”

Read the Alberta Real Estate Foundation’s full 2017-2018 Annual Report.

 

 

March 2019 Community Investment

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The Board of Governors of the Alberta Real Estate Foundation approved $861,000 in community investment projects at their recent meeting.

The Alberta Real Estate Foundation (AREF) supports initiatives that enhance the real estate industry and benefit the communities of Alberta. AREF was established in 1991 under the Alberta Real Estate Act. Since then, it has awarded 20 million dollars in community and industry grants to over 600 projects across Alberta.

Projects approved at the March meeting include:

Alberta Emerald Foundation – Provincial Environmental Recognition Program

The Alberta Emerald Foundation is Alberta’s environmental good-news storytellers connecting the province’s environmental leaders and providing a voice to share their positive examples to inspire others. The Foundation is committed to providing year-round programming that engages, informs, and emboldens environmental stewardship in Alberta.

Alberta Real Estate Foundation – The Next Step: Examining the Real Estate Foundation Revenue Model & Modernization

The Alberta Real Estate Foundation (AREF) was formed in 1990-1991. Next year, the Foundation will celebrate 30 years and now is the time for reflecting on what has worked well with the AREF model to date and how the Foundation can position itself in a changing world of payments, interest rates and community investment and continue to innovate for its next 30 years. This project will provide the Foundation the opportunity to work with stakeholders to imagine better workflows, better consumer protection and modernize the Alberta Real Estate Foundation model.

Center for Public Legal Education Alberta – Residential Tenancies Legal Information Program

The Residential Tenancies Legal Information Program is the best source of easy to understand, accessible and accurate legal information about landlord and tenant matters in Alberta. The program provides vital information to Albertans online, in print and in person.

Pembina Institute – Landowners Guide to Oil and Gas Phase III

Landowners have a number of concerns with abandoned (but not reclaimed), orphaned and/or inactive sites on their property. Backlogged oil and gas liabilities pose fiscal, environmental, and health risks. The recent Supreme Court ruling on the Redwater case means that operators must fulfil their environmental obligations before paying back creditors. However, when an operator goes bankrupt there is a strong likelihood that the revenues generated from liquidating assets will not cover cleanup costs —and the Orphan Well Association’s (OWA) inventory will continue to grow. The Landowners Guide will educate landowners on how to navigate the complex system of abandoned wells on their property.

The Natural Step Canada’s Energy Futures Lab – Energy Futures Roadshow

The Energy Futures Roadshow is an initiative to strengthen community resilience in Alberta by helping communities explore the opportunities and challenges arising from energy transition. It harnesses the combined knowledge, skills and networks of the Energy Futures Lab Fellows and the assets of the Energy Futures Lab to create a program tailored to the community’s interests and delivered in collaboration with the host community. The engagement will typically include a series of workshops over a few days with a diversity of community members, including businesses, governments, schools, economic and community developers and the public. Roadshow communities will be invited into a support network to facilitate ongoing learning and sharing of lessons, collaborative projects and action across communities. The project also includes direct engagement with rural community leaders.

University of Calgary, Canadian Energy Systems Analysis Research (CESAR) Initiative – Mobility-as-a-Service and Parking in Alberta and Canada: Implications for the Real Estate Industry

Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) describes a shift away from personally-owned modes of transportation and towards mobility solutions that are consumed as a service. MaaS is being made possible by massive investments in the synthesis and integration of automation, connectivity, electrification and sharing in vehicles. Given the movement towards MaaS and its potential disruption of parking in Canada, it is important to be able to quantify the amount and value of the land that could be released for other uses, as well as the potential foregone capital and operating costs of providing and maintaining parking infrastructure. To address this need, CESAR will conduct the research and carry out the analyses needed to first provide an inventory of parking supply in Canada and in Alberta. These data will then be combined with estimated unit costs for the building and maintaining of that inventory. The report will end with a discussion of the potential implications of MaaS on the real estate sector in Alberta and across Canada.

University of Calgary, Haskayne School of Business – Anchor Institutions: Diversifying economic growth engines for Calgary’s urban revitalization

This interdisciplinary project will study a new development solution based on anchor institutions to revitalize Calgary’s declining urban core. The economic downturn has brought considerable negative impacts on the urban core represented by the high vacancy rate of downtown’s Class-A office buildings and dilapidated housing and aging infrastructure in the urban core areas. To develop solutions to these challenges, the project will 1) conduct research on best practices of urban revitalization catalyzed by anchor institutions, 2) study supporting planning policies (e.g., financial incentives, development regulations), and 3) produce development scenarios through interdisciplinary studio courses.

University of Calgary, The School of Public Policy – AirBnB and the Secondhand Economy

This project will research the second-hand housing market will seek to improve understanding of the impacts and trends of home sharing services such as Airbnb, particularly on rental and housing markets, with a focus on Calgary and other cities in Alberta. Specifically, the project will seek to understand the main impacts of home sharing in Calgary and factors influencing these impacts; what it means for home ownership and affordability and community characteristics; what are the trends and what might the market and its effects look like in the future; what are similar cities doing to address related issues; and what are policy options for the City of Calgary to develop a suitable framework for regulating the market and how might such a framework be implemented?

University of Calgary, The School of Public Policy – Managing End of Life of Oil and Gas Wells

The School of Public Policy continues its research into the growing problem of orphaned and abandoned oil & gas wells. The project will advance research on effective and equitable policy approaches to address public and private challenges from these wells.

Resiliency through Industry Partnerships

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2017-2018 Annual Report Highlight

Highbanks provides subsidized, safe and affordable housing along with some other supports for 11 young families in Calgary. With funding from AREF, Highbanks is hiring real estate consultants to explore and develop creative partnerships with landlords, property owners, builders and developers. The aim is to work together to come up with creative ways to provide affordable housing for young single mothers, fill vacancies in market rental housing and build resiliency in the community.

“We are really excited to start thinking about how we might address the huge need. The money from AREF allows us to think in non-traditional ways about how we might be able to expand our reach,” says Krista Flint, the executive director at Highbanks. “We are really keen to break down the paradigm of ‘We need a capital campaign and we need to build something else,’ because there are so many wildly innovative models for spaces for social good and we’re really excited to lead that thinking in our sector.”

Highbanks helps young mothers and their children who are homeless, at risk of being homeless or leaving profoundly traumatic situations. “We provide a housing first model with a focus on education and everything we do is sensitive to the deep trauma most of our girls have experienced,” she says. The mothers, many of whom haven’t finished high school, are required to go to school full time. Over the last 15 years, many of the young women that Highbanks has helped have gone on to get post-secondary diplomas or degrees.

Highbanks puts on community events and provides workshops and classes on parenting, coping and stress strategies, financial literacy, nutrition and life skills. A registered social worker refers women to other agencies and supports. It costs about $35,000 a year to help each family— an investment which Highbanks estimates saves taxpayers about $650,000 in publically-funded social services costs.

“We work very closely with organizations concerned with homelessness in Calgary. At any given time, we have about 30 young moms on our waiting list seeking help,” Flint says. “About 97 per cent of the young women who leave us go on to pay market rent and in some wonderful cases, own their own home.

Read the Alberta Real Estate Foundation’s full 2017-2018 Annual Report.

U of L Study a First in Looking at the Use of Precision Agriculture in Irrigation Farming in Alberta

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Given the importance of irrigation to the southern Alberta economy, two University of Lethbridge economists wanted to know if agricultural producers who irrigate are using precision agriculture technologies.

Drs. Lorraine and Chris Nicol have conducted the first study in Alberta examining the adoption of precision agriculture in irrigation farming. Their survey shows users are reducing farm inputs and seeing positive economic benefits as a result.

Last fall, they conducted a survey of irrigators in the Taber Irrigation District (TID) to find out the extent to which precision agriculture technologies are being adopted, the types of tools being used and the satisfaction with the technologies. They also looked at those who didn’t use precision agriculture technologies and their reasons for not adopting. Twenty-seven percent of irrigators in the TID participated in the survey.

“Based on the data collected, 81 percent of irrigators have adopted some form of precision agriculture, an average of five technologies per irrigator. Overall, those who have adopted are very satisfied with the technologies and almost all plan on using even more technologies in the future” says Lorraine. “Among non-adopters, most said their operations were too small to justify the high investment costs.”

Precision agriculture involves parsing fields into small parcels based on variability, allowing more precise application of irrigation water, fertilizer, chemicals and seed, compared to conventional methods. The study identified 20 technologies including auto-steering equipment, variable rate fertilizer and irrigation application, soil-moisture monitoring, terrain mapping and analysis, unmanned aerial vehicle mapping, satellite imagery and various data management tools, for example.

“Precision agriculture has fundamentally changed the way farming is done and it has the potential to reduce costs and increase profits for farmers. Precision agriculture is also critical for sustainable agriculture. Using less fertilizer and less irrigation water, for example, helps lessen run-off and conserve water so it’s also better for the environment,” says Chris.

The TID, one of 13 irrigation districts in the region, has one of the highest concentrations of specialty crops, including potatoes, sugar beets, canola seed, beans, peas, corn, sunflowers and onions. These inputs are vital to processing industries as well as the confined feedlot industry in the region. The TID consists of 115 to 120 irrigation producers who irrigate more than 80,000 acres. Its irrigation infrastructure also supplies water to several communities and many individuals.

The survey showed under precision agriculture, crop yields have increased an average 20 per cent and yearly crop quality has increased by an average of 16 per cent. Yearly reductions in irrigation water, fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides have ranged between 14 and 24 per cent.

Non-adopters consist entirely of farms less than 2,000 acres. Those irrigators generally cited the smaller size of their operations, high investment costs and incompatibility of machines as the main reasons for not adopting.

“These results suggest irrigators are embracing precision agriculture and experiencing the benefits,” says Lorraine. “This also has positive implications for economic and community development, as well as environmental stewardship.”

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The study found:

  • 81% of irrigators have adopted some form of precision agriculture;
  • yearly crop yields have increased an average 20% and yearly crop quality has increased an average 16%;
  • yearly reductions in irrigation water, fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides have ranged from 14% to 24%;
  • precision agriculture technologies are being applied largely to specialty crops;
  • for 85% of adopters, precision agriculture has affected their overall farm management approach;
  • 89% of adopters are highly satisfied with the technology;
  •  92% of adopters plan to adopt additional precision agriculture technologies in the future;
  • non-adopters indicate small operations, high investment costs, and incompatibility of machines are the main reasons for their non-adoption of precision agriculture technologies.

 

 

Read the full report here. The study was funded by a grant from the Alberta Real Estate Foundation.

Methods of Remediation of Contaminated Water and Excess Nutrients

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2017-2018 Annual Report Highlight

Research at Olds College has determined at least three native wetland plants in Alberta—sedges, cattails and bulrushes—are “working very well” removing contaminants and excess nutrients from the water. “There’s no data that indicates what plants, what kind of contaminants or nutrients each plant takes up and how much the plants can take up at a time,” says Ruth Elvestad, research technician at Olds College Centre for Innovation.

That’s why AREF supported furthering the research with a project called: Use of Native Wetland Plants and Cold Climate Floating Island Systems for the Remediation of Contaminated Water and Water with Excess Nutrients. The project will test several more native wetland plants to help landowners understand the value of wetlands on their property and how different plants can clean up different contaminants.

“We would say let’s test the water that has algae or other contaminants,” says Elvestad. “Then we should be able to say ‘This is what you’ve got going on in your pond so you need plant X, Y or Z and this is how many you need of each in order to assist in cleaning your water so it can be recycled and used in agriculture, irrigation, and other applicable industries.’”

Read the Alberta Real Estate Foundation’s full 2017-2018 Annual Report.

Rural Climate Solutions Online Resources and Broadcasting

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2017-2018 Annual Report Highlight

The Stettler Learning Centre is creating a series of podcasts and a website that are “part educational tool, part source of inspiration” aimed at Alberta producers who want to understand what they can do on the farm to help move toward a clean energy economy.

“This podcast comes straight out of Alberta—one of Canada’s biggest agriculture and energy producers— and dives into the technology and practices that are both good for the farm and good for the climate,” says Derek Leahy, the project coordinator for Rural Routes to Climate Solutions at the Stettler Learning Centre. “The agriculture sector is often characterized as a cause of climate change as opposed to a solution but most people do not realize that there are farming practices that can help us in the fight against climate change.”

From solar power to better land management, many of the practices that can help the environment can also help improve farming and ranching operations. “There are many producers who do not realize many climate solutions can help their farming and ranching operations thrive,” says Leahy. For example, using biodiversity can boost productivity, manage pests and help the land endure Alberta’s endless cycle of floods and droughts. Another podcast covers the benefits of formalizing a cooperative among agricultural producers to save on costs and minimize operators’ environmental footprints.

“Producers are constantly looking for opportunities and new techniques to improve my agricultural operations,” says Leahy. “Our project connects those dots by providing clear, informative and entertaining explanations on how producers can benefit from using climate solutions on their land.”

AREF’s support for the project allows the Learning Centre extend an existing program that received funding from the Alberta Government Community Environment Action Grant program. The initial program developed workshops and other materials for producers about agricultural and land-use practices that reduce carbon emissions.

Turning those materials into podcasts provides a really convenient method for producers to consume the information. “For producers, time is limited and it is also a precious commodity. But with the podcast, a producer can simply download episodes on to his or her phone and listen on the job, particularly on those days that they’re on a tractor or combine all day.” says Leahy.

“It is our hope that through this easily accessible method of learning, producers will be informed and inspired to use climate solutions on their farms. They will benefit and we will all benefit from this.”

Listen to the Rural Routes to Climate Solutions podcast here!

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Read the Alberta Real Estate Foundation’s full 2017-2018 Annual Report.