Prairie Land and Water Resources - Land Resources Introduction

LAND USE

Soils are an integral component of our environment and together with water constitute the most important natural resources of our nation. Of 918.1 million hectares of Canada's total area, only 44.5 million hectares (about 5%) are suitable for sustained agricultural crop production. About 72% of this area is located in the prairie provinces. With the exception of a small proportion ( 0.4%) of this land, most of the agricultural land has a number of physical and climatic constraints which limit productive potential.

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Map showing extent of agricultural coverage on the praries

Research during the past decade has documented a 40-50% decrease in soil organic matter and an increase in soil salinity. In 1983, Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA) published a report titled Land Degradation and Soil Conservation Issues on the Canadian prairies. This report was an assessment of soil systems on the Prairies. It pointed out some of the problems such as wind erosion, water erosion, salinity and organic matter decline which needed to be resolved if prairie farmland is to continue to produce large amounts of food.

In 2000, PFRA compiled another report titled Prairie Agricultural Landscapes: a land resource review. This report can be downloaded from the PFRA website.

An unfortunate phase in the history of the agricultural development of Western Canada was the settlement of many areas of submarginal land. Such settlement took place under the stimulus of unusually good crop seasons, when even poor lands produced fairly good yields. Lacking or disregarding information on long term climatic conditions, many settlers made investments in land, buildings, and social services greatly out of proportion to the intrinsic agricultural value of lands. The inevitable results were the creation of uncollectable debts and the early abandonment of land. In Census District No. 3 of Alberta, for example, which extended north and west from Medicine Hat, census returns for 1926 showed that 55 percent of the farm acreage had been abandoned.

One consequence of the settlement and subsequent abandonment of submarginal areas was the destruction of the original prairie grass. Natural regrassing of abandoned cultivated prairie land takes place only after many years. In the interval, such land has little or no value as pasturage and, if infested with weeds and exposed to wind erosion, may constitute a menace to nearby arable areas.

The non-abandoned submarginal farms created another problem. These came to be described as "slums of the open prairies," where economical crop production was impossible, and where social services could only be maintained at a loss to the community. A large proportion of the cost of rural relief, and of the losses arising from tax delinquencies on the prairies in those years, could be blamed on the existence of submarginal farming.

Recognizing that correcting these conditions was essential to the rehabilitation of prairie agriculture, PFRA organized the Land Utilization Program in 1937. The major objectives of this program were:

Permanent withdrawal of submarginal prairie lands from cultivation;
Development of such areas for grazing purposes; and
Resettlement on suitable farm land of farmers removed from submarginal areas.

These objectives have been realized over the years through the organization of PFRA community pastures and through various resettlements schemes, chiefly on new irrigation projects.