The organization will present in front of the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority in April
A local Ontario livestock organization will be making its case for a community pasture next month.
The Lambton Cattlemen’s Association will make a presentation to the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority on April 17 about turning about 200 of 600 available acres into a community pasture.
“These are lands that are in south Lambton over by Wilkesport,” Chad Anderson, president of the local cattlemen’s group, told Farms.com.
Ontario has 11 community pastures and related organizational groups.
Together, they form the Ontario Association of Community Pastures.
The Leeds Community Pasture Association, for example, owns and manages a 1,500-acre property near Soperton that supports up to 25 producers.
The Lambton Cattlemen’s Association is preparing a business plan for its project.
The plan will include information like the grasses for the pasture and who is responsible for seeding and care. The documents will also include environmental and habitat management information.
If the cattlemen’s group is successful with its pitch, it will become a member of the provincial organization and would be required to come up with its own bylaws and other rules.
This would provide certain insurance and administrative benefits.
“It’s a lot of work but it’s very exciting,” Anderson said.
The work on community pastures started last year.
At its 2024 AGM, Beef Farmers of Ontario passed a resolution to work with Conservation Ontario and local conservation authorities to find available leasable land for community pastures.
And this February, the Lambton Cattlemen’s Association held a meeting to vet interest in the project.
The turnout suggested farmers in the community want and need access to this land for multiple reasons.
“We could probably fill this community pasture four times over,” Anderson said. “It’s important because we’d like it to include all the land at some point, but that’s a long way away. We’re in an area with intensive row crop production and we’ve lost vast amounts of pastureland in the last 20 years.”
For context, the 2012 Census of Agriculture estimates Ontario loses about 319 acres of farmland each day.
Another reason for the community pasture is to support younger producers. In this context, a young farmer is someone under 40, Anderson said.