Thank you very much, and thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to speak to you.
ALUS differs from other environmental programs in three fundamental ways. First, it is a farmer-driven environmental incentive program. The ALUS concept was initiated by Keystone Agricultural Producers of Manitoba with assistance from Delta Waterfowl Foundation. ALUS is now a policy with most producer groups across Canada.
Secondly, ALUS differs because it will be delivered by existing agricultural organizations and institutions, which are well positioned to carry out this role. For example, crop insurance agencies are trusted by producers, and have the people and the technical ability already on the ground to monitor a fully accountable program.
Third, ALUS is vastly different from conservation programs delivered by government and by urban-based conservation NGOs because ALUS uses a landscape-based, whole-farm, rural-community approach. Basically, it's a working landscape. In short, ALUS is different and better because it invests public sector resources in the capacity of the people who live on the land and live in rural communities to deliver landscape conservation.
ALUS should be the environmental policy flagship for the next stage of agriculture policy framework because it fits so well with current agricultural and environmental programs undertaken by a wide range of organizations in government and the private sector. For example, ALUS will build on the benefits of the environmental farm plan process; add incentives to protect natural assets, biodiversity, species at risk, and fish habitat; and promote carbon sequestration and clean air benefits as well as water quality in communities.
ALUS encourages the active participation of farmers and ranchers in conserving the environment and producing more environmental benefits. ALUS is designed to mobilize producers as conservationists, changing the way they think about the environment and recognizing the vital role of producers, and providing Canadians with quality products: crops, livestock, and a new third “crop”--environmental benefits.
ALUS is Canada's fastest-growing grassroots landscape conservation policy initiative. The concept has been adopted as official policy for the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and in fact was recently endorsed by the Canadian Cattlemen's Association's environment committee and is actively promoted by several provincial producer organizations.
To date, a groundswell of grassroots support for ALUS includes farming and ranching organizations at every level across this country, and a wide range of conservation organizations and governments. Municipal governments in several jurisdictions have promised and delivered financial support for implementing ALUS. In fact, that makes our conservation program unique, in that it has full engagement, in most cases, of our municipal--third level--government.
ALUS has also received widespread support in the farm, conservation, and general media. ALUS pilot projects have been proposed to test the ALUS concept in Ontario, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Pilot projects have attracted a wide range of partners who stand ready to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars as matching funds for testing the ALUS concept in these jurisdictions. Manitoba has a fully funded ALUS pilot project in which the federal government is a partner, but ALUS projects in Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan have not yet been successful in attracting federal dollars.
The results of the ALUS pilot project in the rural municipality of Blanshard, Manitoba, have been compelling. Over 70% of the producers in the region have enrolled lands in the pilot project--lands of vital interest to society, including wetlands, woodlands, repairing areas, plus fragile and erodible lands. Almost 22,000 acres have been enrolled in the first eight months of the pilot project, far surpassing our original predictions.
The pilot has also shown that Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation, formally known as Manitoba Crop Insurance Corporation, has the capability to administer a transparent, verifiable, and accountable program with minimal additional costs.
It must be noted that Blanshard is in the Lake Winnipeg watershed, a watershed which contains vast amounts of private agricultural land. The problems of Lake Winnipeg are well known, and an incentive-based conservation program on the agricultural landscape will contribute significantly to the health of Lake Winnipeg.