nutrient management plans

[lonewolf]

I am a cow calf farmer farming in northern ontario and have recently became aware of the new legislation requiring Ontario farmers to register their farms for nutrient management plans. It seems to me that this will create alot of extra unpaid work on an all ready diminishing set of hours in my week. Is there anyone that has looked at this new legislation and had a chance to digest what it will mean for the future of farming in Canada?

[dalek]

I just made a presentation to the consultation on it today. The NMP part of the proposed legislation is actually the least significant part in my mind, compared to the proposed regulations on application standards for manure, storage, standards for outdoor housing, etc., most of which are scheduled to come into effect April 1 2003 if it goes as they plan and would have major impacts, particularly in Eastern and Northern Ontario. Things like banning winter spreading, standards based on depth of topsoil, slope and depth of the water table which would take some large amounts of land out of production, separation distances from houses, wells etc for applying manure orfertilizer. So draconian even one of the extreme environmentalists today said it was too hard for farmers to comply with.

[lonewolf]

Since my original quiry I have downlaoded and read over 400 pages prepared by OMAF and was really disturted by the fact that any penalty the government awards against a farmer can be sifted to the municipality to collect on the tax bill. Therefore if refuse to pay or have the inability to pay the local clerk can sieze the property our farms and sell them to collect the penalties. I am furthur concerned that the govs inspectors under bill 81 can enter all our premises (except that portion in which we dwell) without warrant or notification.

[15444]

lonewolf....what part of Northern Ontario do you live in? I live in the Rainy River District near the Manitoba border. I knew all about the act from day one and it still scares me shitless. I'm actually going to a meeting tonight to hear a presentation on the whole issue. The only thing I'm banking on is that the guys in Toronto won't give a hoot about the few farmers up here in Northwestern Ontario. They never have for other things so I don't expect them to now either. Also I can't see the goverment spending big bucks to put a enforcement officer up here to cover the few farmers we have that are spread over a wide area.

[dalek]

15444 they don't need an enforcement officer in your area, they'll just make sure all the treehuggers know the rules and when they have enough complaints against enough farmers they'll send somebody through on a road trip to check them all out at once.
lonewolf the list of people who can already come on your property is staggering. The biggest problem we're having in this area is harassment from Department of Fisheries and Oceans telling farmers if they don't have their cattle out of the streams in two days it's a $250,000 fine.

[lonewolf]

15444 I too farm in the Rainy River District and was at the informational meeting last night. As for enforcement officers from my understanding MOEE is going to look after it and they are here regularly and it just takes a few minutes of their time to take a jaunt off of the main highway to randomly check any property should they so choose. It just takes one complaint to start any investigation and I am not willing to bet the family farm on an random complaint from a by-passer. I will begin implenting parts of the new regulations to show due diligence as I can afford it.

Dalek Have farmers been complying with DFO. I have a waterway on my farm and am very curious at what is happening in your area.

I have been trying to calculate what thses MNP and NMS will cost me so that I can try to figure out how many more cows I will need to survive as a farmer. I think that if each of us gets out a pen and starts writing down direct costs (such as storage facilities: Something that I do not have.), and indirect costs ( such as cleaning feedlots and moving solid manure to storage or turning it out in the field or loss of yields and land due to setbacks and DFO telling us not to have cattle in waterways.) and collect these as an industry and submit them to the Minister and the public and tell them to open their wallets then maybe the might substantially tone done their regs.

I am thinking about getting the software NMAN from OMAF and would like some feed back before I purchase it..

Is there anyone that could give some information about mapping technologies both hardware and software?

[dalek]

So far DFO has managed to scare a few farmers out of business and the others have banded together to buy some time but they seem to think it's a losing battle.
The issue for most cow - calf producers here isn't the cost of the NMP or NMS, it's that the economics of the sector have already pushed production onto the more marginal land and now the soil depth and slope regulations for outdoor confinement areas are going to hit them hard. We've already been told that the MOEEs interpretation is that if you have bedrock showing within 6" of the soil anywhere you winter cattle, you'll have to cover it with 6" of packed topsoil or cap it with concrete and have the runoff directed into storage. Most of our cow-calf producers winter their cattle in cedars with lots of bedrock, many set up their feeders on the bedrock to keep things dry.
We're also going to have a problem with winter spreading being banned as of April 1st, it means a lot of our producers, particularly smaller dairy farms, need new manure storages next summer or fall. With no news of funding yet, expect a lot of milk quota hitting the market.