10 Dec Ministers visit AgriWatershed Partnership Land Management Demonstration Project
Recently, the Minister of Agriculture and Land, the Hon. Bloyce Thompson and the Minister of Environment Water & Climate Change, the Hon. Natalie Jameson, toured one of the AgriWatershed Partnership’s land management demonstration sites at Uigg and heard first hand from both the watershed coordinator and the farmer involved on how the process worked for them in addressing a problem site.
Clarence Ryan, coordinator for the Pisquid River Enhancement Group, routinely works with local farmers to improve the health of the streams in his watershed. He was key to advancing the Uigg site as a demonstration project for 2020. On this demonstration project and the prospect of future support for similar cooperative projects, he says:
“The uptake in Soil and Water Conservation projects like this in recent years is gratifying to all people in the province; it not only protects our streams, estuaries, wetlands, and ponds, it serves to preserve the habitat for all the creatures living in them. For the producer, maintaining the health of the soil is directly related to the crop yield. With a trend toward longer dryer summers, soil and water conservation will be crucial.”
Farmer Steven Visser (centre) discusses his project while Hon. Bloyce Thompson(left) and AWP Chair, Mike Durant (right) look on.Steven Visser, of J&S Produce Inc., the cooperating landowner in the demonstration project, commented that “no farmer wants to see runoff from one of their fields impacting watercourses” and he welcomed the opportunity to work with both the local watershed group, the AgriWatershed Partnership and Soil & Water Engineers from the PEI Department of Agriculture and Land, to develop a solution that is both effective and practical from a farming point of view.