Funding comes from the Weston Family Foundation Prairie Grassland Initiative
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Representatives from the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Foundation (SSGF) recently announced funding from the Weston Family Foundation Prairie Grassland Initiative.
SSGF plans to use the $3.4 million to fund several projects over the coming years.
“Over a five-year period, we are receiving $3.4 million. We will be doing projects to do with grass management,” said Ray McDougald. He is the chair of SSGF.
SSGF representatives submitted a proposal to the initiative, which has awarded nearly $25 million to five organizations to accelerate the implementation of sustainable practices and achieve landscape-level impact, said the release.
This funding is important because it allows SSGF to work with farmers, said McDougald.
“They’re not making any more native grassland. Once it's plowed up its history,” he told Farms.com. “Ranching is probably one of the most powerful things we can do as far as doing our share to keep the biodiversity going. Because once that land is transferred from being used for ranching it either becomes farmland or becomes an acreage. I guess fragmentation like that is not good for birds or anything that are migrating.”
These projects will build on what’s already been done over the last five years with the Species at Risk Partnerships on Agricultural Lands and Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association programming.
The goal is the have 350,000 acres of native grasslands and critical habitat for species at risk under robust, long-term conversation agreements and/or term conservation easements within five years, said the release.