The purpose of this guide is to support new and landless farmers to choose a path toward accessing land. In researching and writing this guide, the driving question has been: how have new farmers secured land? There are several different options to consider from leasing and purchasing to community farms and incubator plots – each with its own set of pros and cons.

This document was originally produced by Young Agrarians for new and young farmers in British Columbia. This guide has been adapted to the Alberta context by Organic Alberta with financial support from the Alberta Real Estate Foundation.

Read the blog post. 

Agricultural lands support numerous social, economic, and environmental benefits. In addition to making up an invaluable aspect of Alberta’s heritage and culture, the social benefits of agricultural lands include food security and valued viewscapes. In terms of economic benefits, agricultural lands enable significant contributions to employment and GDP. 

This report is the first of two reports which aim to answer how to move from conversion to conservation of Alberta’s agricultural lands. 

Canada contains many radon gas-generating regions and, because we have constructed population centres across all of them, radon is the primary cause of lung cancer in 10,000- 40,000 Canadians per decade. We have conducted detailed radon gas analysis of 11,000+ homes spread across Alberta and Saskatchewan, finding that 1 in 6 contain hazardous amounts of radon with newer homes in many regions (but not all) having much higher total radon. We have revealed an unknown “X factor” within environmental design practice across regions that is a major contributor to radon exposure, and our goal now is to understand this and develop solutions to protect the population. We aim to (i) identify modifiable behaviors and environmental design practices influencing chronic radon exposure in our changing world and (ii) define engineering and community intervention solutions applicable within the Canadian context to eliminate radon as a source of cancer in the future.

Farmers and ranchers can play a pivotal role in building the low-carbon economy of the future. Especially in Alberta, home to one-third of Canada’s agricultural land and two important carbon sinks—grasslands and the boreal forest. The wildrose province also has some of the best solar and wind power resources in Canada.

Climate solutions are often viewed as being an inconvenience to our everyday lives. But farm solutions are climate solutions and many of them have multiple concrete benefits that go beyond stopping climate change: improving soil fertility; creating new economic opportunities; protecting biodiversity; energy independence and building resiliency against droughts and floods. It is a win-win strategy.

Accessible Housing is a non-profit organisation and registered charity, which helps open doors to homes that are both accessible and affordable for people with limited mobility, a growing population with unmet needs in the province of Alberta. Recognising a need in the community for increased mobility-restricted and cost-effective housing, the Accessible Housing Society undertook the development a 45-suite home known as Inclusio. Through the initial design, development and operation of Inclusio, Accessible Housing gained a great deal of knowledge about not only construction design and development but also additionally, how the services provided integrate in the most useful way for residents within the building design. Through a generous grant provided by the Alberta Real Estate Foundation, Accessible Housing has been able to gather this learned information and share the story of Inclusio with many stakeholders.

The primary goal of this guide is to provide design recommendations – derived from evidence-based scientific literature – that may enhance mentalwellbeing. This guide hopes to be a benchmark to allow affordable housing stakeholders to consider the psychological impact of certain design elements. This is achieved by considering a balance between the cost efficiency of the design elements, and the benefit as supported by peer-reviewed psychological studies.

This report examines the important contribution that municipalities can make to biodiversity conservation in Alberta where amendments to the Municipal Government Act empower, and indeed require, Alberta’s municipalities to enhance their environmental protection efforts. An examination of these changes, assessed using the principles of subsidiarity, environmental governance, and biocultural diversity, reveals that municipalities, both large and small, urban and rural, can innovate with novel legal initiatives to improve their biodiversity related conservation actions. Concurrently, while municipal innovation is possible, improving local biodiversity conservation action also requires innovations in funding, citizen engagement, and regional environmental governance. Municipalities are already recognized contributors to biodiversity conservation and great strides have been made at the municipal level to increase habitat connectivity. Current municipal conservation efforts need to be augmented to harness new statutory powers, capitalize on local knowledge and initiative, and enhance citizen education and engagement.

The Alberta Narratives Project Report I and Report II are intended to provide practical guidance for climate and energy communicators about what language works well and – crucially – what language might pose an obstacle for communicating with any specific group.

Report I, Communicating Climate Change and Energy in Alberta is concerned with finding the language that works best across Albertan society by helping to find common ground across very different positions. This generates a core narrative that can be applied for general public engagement.

Report II, Communicating Climate Change and Energy with Different Audiences in Alberta offers tailored language that can be the basis of effective communications with each of the following groups: oil sands workers, conservatives, environmentalists, rural Albertans, business leaders, youth, new Canadians and people of faith.

These are guidebooks, not rulebooks. Skilled communications should always listen to their audiences, and experiment with new and fresh ways of speaking.

The final report of a study investigating the adoption of technological advancements in irrigation agriculture found irrigators are actively adopting these technologies, generating benefits for irrigators, the broader communities that depend on irrigation, and the environment. Often referred to as “precision agriculture”, the technologies improve crop yield and quality, as well as reduce farm inputs. Examples of such technologies are GPS systems, satellite imagery, auto-steer technology, and weather monitoring sensors.

The study, entitled “Advancements in Irrigation Agriculture with Implications for Economic and Community Development and Environmental Stewardship in Southern Alberta”, surveyed Taber Irrigation District irrigators. The findings were recently released by researchers Drs. Lorraine and Chris Nicol of the University of Lethbridge.

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.