Cleanfarms Collecting Unwanted, Obsolete Agricultural Pesticides and Old Farm Animal Medications in Four Canadian Provinces this Fall

Sep 05, 2023

Each fall, Cleanfarms teams spread out across the country, bringing a valued opportunity to local farmers to safely and conveniently dispose of unwanted and obsolete agricultural pesticides and old livestock, equine and poultry medications.

Cleanfarms is the national stewardship organization that develops and operates programs to help farmers/producers manage on-farm agricultural waste materials. This year, it will be returning to four regions of Canada to hold events to collect these materials.

This year’s program features 72 collection events – some of which are one day blitz style collections and others that are multi-day events. They will take place in:

Quebec: September 18 to October 6 with a mix of blitz and multi-day events
British Columbia: Vancouver Island, October 2 to 4 and Fraser Valley, October 10 to 13
Saskatchewan (Southern): October 23 to 27
Prince Edward Island: October 30 to November 10 (all multi-day events)

This is an important opportunity to collect items that are no longer needed and bring them for safe disposal. Farmers are encouraged to bring:

old or unwanted agricultural pesticides (identified with a Pest Control Product number on the label; includes used miticide strips)
commercial pesticides for golf courses and industrial and commercial pest control products (identified with a Pest Control Product number on the label)
livestock/equine medications that are used on-farm for livestock, poultry or horses (identified with a DIN number, serial number, notification number or Pest Control Product number on the label).

The program does NOT accept:

fertilizer, diluted rinsate solution, large quantities of unopened product, and treated seed (except in Quebec)
full and unopened jugs of adjuvant or surfactant
aerosol containers, premises disinfectants and sanitizers
needles or sharps, medicated feed, waste and medications from veterinary clinics, ear tags
domestic pesticides and any other household hazardous waste.

The program offers an essential solution to a big issue that farmers are faced with year after year; keeping leftover chemicals and crop inputs out of the environment after they are no longer needed on the farm.

“Knowing that there is a safe way of managing hazardous on-farm waste materials, farmers appreciate this program and wait for it to return to their region every three years. Not only that, but we’re always glad to meet up with new farmers every time we’re in each region,” says Cleanfarms’ Executive Director Barry Friesen. “We’ve been told that this program provides peace of mind for farmers, understanding that the materials they bring will be disposed of according to the highest health and safety standards.”

Cleanfarms has been managing the program to collect old, unwanted pesticides since 2010, and expanded it in partnership with The Canadian Animal Health Institute (CAHI) to include obsolete farm animal medications in 2014.

“CAHI and our member companies are delighted to once again support upcoming Cleanfarms collections this fall. Recognizing the connection between animal health, human health, and our environment, we take immense pride in our longstanding partnership with Cleanfarms, which showcases our members’ unwavering dedication to environmental stewardship and sustainable initiatives,” stated Dr. Catherine Filejski, President, and CEO of CAHI.

The crop protection industry members of Cleanfarms, in partnership with CAHI, cover the full cost of operating the program and disposing of the materials responsibly so that farmers pay nothing when they drop off accepted items. All materials are managed safely through high temperature incineration.

The previous round of collections in these regions was in 2020 and yielded a total of 298,127 kgs of unwanted pesticides and 3,389 kgs of obsolete animal medications.

Collection events are scheduled at local agricultural retailers’ locations for ease of access. Farmers can find their most convenient events at the Cleanfarms’ website under ‘What to recycle & Where’, then clicking on ‘Unwanted pesticides & old livestock/equine medications’.

Source : Clean Farmers

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”