Ontario’s Government is partnering with farmers throughout Chatham-Kent, Leamington, and Essex to make their operations more environmentally sustainable. New funding and initiatives are meant to boost water quality in the Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair watershed.
MPP for Chatham-Kent Leamington, Rick Nicholls, commended Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Ernie Hardeman, on a recent announcement of increased cost-share funding. The new funding is committed to farmers to help complete more than 300 on-farm projects to reduce phosphorus entering waterways connected to Lake Erie. The improvements come through the Lake Erie Agriculture Demonstrating Sustainability (LEADS) initiative, under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership.
“Real and locally driven action to protect our soil, air, and waterways is the positive conservative vision for the Environment” said MPP Nicholls. “Nobody understands the connection between human activity and ecological health better than farmers do. That’s why I turn to them when reviewing new ideas on sustainability.”
Included among these are 52 projects in Chatham-Kent Leamington the 2019-20 year. These local projects saw an investment under the Partnership of $461,244.59.
Top priorities among LEADS projects include:
- Planting over-wintering cover crops to improve soil health and reduce soil erosion losses;
- Planting vegetation and trees to provide a buffer between agricultural operations and waterways; and
- Modifying equipment to improve management of agricultural nutrients and to reduce soil compaction.
“Our farmers always have been careful stewards of the land and our government is pleased to support them in their actions to protect what matters most, such as water quality in the Lake Erie watershed,” said Ernie Hardeman, Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. “Our government is committed to helping more farmers make changes through LEADS that will make their operations even more environmentally sustainable.”
Ontario farmers in the Lake Erie watershed have advocated and led by example for taking action to improve local soil health and water quality.
To date, both the federal and provincial governments have committed cost-share support to more than 1,150 projects through the Partnership. The projects are carried out by eligible Ontario farmers, processors, businesses and sector organizations.