An invitation to pasture patrons: come speak at a Public Forum on the Pastures

Tree Swallow perched on our Prairie Stewardship sign

In Regina on Friday, November 23rd, there will be a facilitated open forum on the disposal of the PFRA pasture lands in Saskatchewan. The night before, Nov. 22nd, author Candace Savage (freshly returned from her well-deserved award of the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust prize for non-fiction) will present her thoughts on the legacy of the PFRA pastures at a public slide-talk at the Education Auditorium, beginning at 7pm. The evening is free. Copies of Candace's brilliant and powerful new book, A Geography of Blood: Unearthing Memory from a Prairie Landscape will be on sale.


We are holding the public forum on the 23rd at the Orr Centre which is a short drive north of the Exhibition Grounds in Regina (see map here). We especially would like to hear from PFRA pasture patrons and other livestock people who will voice their opinions on the pastures issue, as well as people from the conservation community, rural municipalities and farm organizations. Any interested government staff from the Provincial and Federal levels are also very welcome to join us for the day if they can come. Our hope is that by bringing together the various interest groups and stakeholders--especially pasture patrons--we will find some common ground on the matter of how these critically important landscapes should be managed in the years to come.

For now, the Province of Saskatchewan says that they plan to sell or lease all 61 of the pastures in stages, and they have announced the first ten to be disposed of. Yesterday, with the Federal Government they released some information on how they will give money to any pasture patron groups who want to buy a pasture. There was an article in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix covering the story and they interviewed the Provincial Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Lyle Stewart, as well as a cattleman from Dundurn area who has used the local community pasture. The cattleman, Verner Falk, says in the article that ranchers will not be able to afford to buy the pastures and that the new funding promises won't make a difference.

Verner Falk, who is part of a group of ranchers whose cattle graze on a community pasture near Dundurn.
Falk said the estimated value of the pasture land — which is likely in the millions of dollars — is more than most ranchers can afford. Falk said there are fewer than half as many ranchers using the land than a decade ago. He believes the money Stewart is offering won’t come close to making it an attractive deal for ranchers.


Read more: http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Province+offers+incentives+ranchers+take+over+community+pastures/7555911/story.html#ixzz2CM3vQd3t

Verner Falk, who is part of a group of ranchers whose cattle graze on a community pasture near Dundurn.
Falk said the estimated value of the pasture land — which is likely in the millions of dollars — is more than most ranchers can afford. Falk said there are fewer than half as many ranchers using the land than a decade ago. He believes the money Stewart is offering won’t come close to making it an attractive deal for ranchers.


Read more: http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Province+offers+incentives+ranchers+take+over+community+pastures/7555911/story.html#ixzz2CM3vQd3t

Verner Falk, who is part of a group of ranchers whose cattle graze on a community pasture near Dundurn.
Falk said the estimated value of the pasture land — which is likely in the millions of dollars — is more than most ranchers can afford. Falk said there are fewer than half as many ranchers using the land than a decade ago. He believes the money Stewart is offering won’t come close to making it an attractive deal for ranchers.


Read more: http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Province+offers+incentives+ranchers+take+over+community+pastures/7555911/story.html#ixzz2CM3vQd3t

Verner Falk, who is part of a group of ranchers whose cattle graze on a community pasture near Dundurn.
Falk said the estimated value of the pasture land — which is likely in the millions of dollars — is more than most ranchers can afford. Falk said there are fewer than half as many ranchers using the land than a decade ago. He believes the money Stewart is offering won’t come close to making it an attractive deal for ranchers.


Read more: http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Province+offers+incentives+ranchers+take+over+community+pastures/7555911/story.html#ixzz2CM3vQd3t

That is what it is; however, at the same time this was happening, the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities--which was officially on record as supporting the Province's plan--entertained a resolution that insisted that the Province "retain ownership of the federally transitioned pastures and assist with the development of a pasture lands management structure to ensure the pastures continue to serve local producers and communities."

I came home to find a voice-mail from a friend who was on the floor at the convention, telling me that the resolution, sponsored by a group of four rural municipalities, was passed by more than two-thirds majority! An email from Joanne Brochu (who drafted the resolution and who I wrote about in this space a couple weeks ago) confirmed it. That was such exciting news. SARM is a key stakeholder in this matter and the voice of its membership from rural areas around this province simply cannot be ignored.

Again, pasture patrons--if you are out there, please please come to Regina and take part in the forum next Friday. If you want to talk about it or are nervous and need to be convinced please email me at trevorherriot@gmail.com or phone me at 306-585-1674. I would love to talk to you.

Meanwhile, here are some more details on the forum:

a Peregrine Falcon I found this spring migrating through pasture land

The morning information session topics include the history and context of the pastures, ecological values and species at risk in the pastures, and First Nations interests in the land. There will be two open mic sessions, time to say your peace or ask questions.

The noon panel discussion features key stakeholders - pasture employees and patrons, First Nations, and conservation and recreational interests.

The afternoon session will be a facilitated discussion on the role of the pastures within public policy, working towards resolutions.

The day's proceedings are open to all! And free of charge. A catered lunch will be available for $10.

Will the real pasture patrons please come forward?

courtesy of Hamilton Greenwood

The provincial government has said that they have consulted with the PFRA grazing patrons and with the livestock industry. They say they will only sell or lease the 62 PFRA pastures in Saskatchewan to “patron groups.” I want to trust our elected representatives and they no doubt feel they are doing the right thing with the pastures, but I am having trouble figuring out what they mean when they talk about pasture patrons.

I have spoken to people who have had cattle recently on a PFRA pasture and they say they were not contacted by the provincial government to get their thoughts on how the pastures should be handled once they are transferred to the province. My last post was based on a conversation I had with a patron from Colonsay, Joanne Brochu.

One estimate I heard says that there were 2800 PFRA pasture patrons in the system. Most of those would be in Saskatchewan. Has anyone polled them to see what they would like to see happen with this land?

Now, I am not a livestock producer and my experience with cattle is limited to watching the neighbour’s steers and heifers graze our little bit of native prairie, but as anyone who reads this space will know, that shortcoming has never stopped me from trying to figure out what is going on in the beef production world.

So, with that half-assed disclaimer tucked into my boots, I will wade in. And as usual, I hope to hear from people who can correct me if any of what I am about to say is way out of line.

From what I am given to understand, the average PFRA pasture patron has in the past usually been a small to medium-sized livestock producer. Many of them mixed farmers who have fewer than 300 head of cattle. Although the system may have recently gotten away from its original commitment to also help out younger producers--these days young cattlemen are rare as hens’ teeth--there has always been a sense that these publicly owned grasslands had a mandate to provide access to affordable grazing for those who need it most: smaller producers and those who are just getting started.

If the PFRA pastures, some of the best maintained grasslands anywhere in North America, are sold or leased out to private interests, that mandate will be gone. Instead of helping smaller producers who need it most, the pastures will be controlled by those who are already doing quite well. In effect, the transfer of the 62 PFRA pastures from the Federal government to Saskatchewan will greatly accelerate an industry rationalization process that has been underway for quite a while.


badly managed private pasture



Regardless of what party is in power, agriculture policy at every government level, whether it is about grain production or meat production, has strongly shifted away from any pretense that the little guy matters and toward the “go big or go home” mentality that now dominates the landscape. Take a look at recent Stats Canada figures showing that 2.6% of Canada’s farms bring in $1 million or more in revenue and produce 40% of total receipts for the nation’s agriculture. But while the number of million dollar farms rises, we are losing farms at a ferocious rate. From 2001 to 2006, the number of farms in Canada dropped by 7.1%. We lost 17,000 in that five year period! We need more farms, not less if we want to raise food in healthy sustainable ways that serve our communities and landscapes.

How does this relate to the pastures being sold or leased to private groups? Well, no one will be surprised if we find out that the “patron groups” who manage to put together the funds to purchase or lease the PFRA pastures are well financed and large operators. Some of the buyers will undoubtedly have strong positions within the supply chain that runs between the pasture and the export market or your dinner plate. By that, I mean the feedlots that “finish” the cattle before they are shipped either to foreign slaughterhouses or to the two meat packers that provide virtually all of Canada’s beef. Those two corporations, however, are foreign entities too. Cargill, one of the planet’s biggest agricultural multi-nationals, runs one, and the other, XL foods of recent e. coli infamy, is being taken over by the world’s largest beef processor, JBS, which subsumed the American company Swift Meats in 2007 and kept on going without a pause.

The only people earning big money in the beef market these days have found ways to get large enough to take advantage of a system that is designed to make JBS and Cargill very wealthy while providing our trading partners and Canada with relatively cheap meat. (I.e. cheap relative to disposable income.) Some are feedlot owners, some are investors and land-owners who finance large feeder-cattle grazing operations, and some are simply cattlemen who have a lot of land and cattle. Many of these folks are doing well, in part because they have followed the cues and incentives that ag policy has provided, and in part because they have found a niche in the system that works for them. One might congratulate them for their success, but that would be superfluous because the Saskatchewan Agricultural Hall of Fame has already done that. They are often the ones who get appointed to boards and committees established by government or industry. They become the presidents and chairs of organizations that end up speaking for all cattlemen, including the silent majority who don’t have time or inclination to get involved in politics and industry-level lobbying.

These are the men--and yes, almost all of them are men--who get called in to speak for the cattle industry at times like this. They may know a lot more about managing a feedlot, running spread sheets, or lobbying for trade deals with China than they do about delivering a breach calf or identifying invasive plants, but they somehow are the ones who end up calling the shots on how Canada’s grasslands are used by and allocated to cattle producers.

In the end it comes down to this: the private sale or lease opportunity on offer by the Provincial Government may appeal to well-financed and well-connected larger players in the cattle industry's supply chain, but it will do nothing but further marginalize the average patron of these pastures, the independant cow-calf operators who may need some extra grass now and then and the small to medium-sized cattle operations depend on the pastures every year.

And that means your uncle and aunt who have been using the local PFRA pasture will find it that much harder to keep going in a business that is being tilted in favour of the industry’s big players and the foreign interests who end up delivering the cheapest hamburger and steak possible to a store near you. Which brings up another story we are not hearing about--it is easy to point to the industry, but its big winners are only giving us what we want: cheap, tasty meat. The buck ultimately stops with the consumer. If we want to take better care of our grasslands, and sustain the PFRA and other ecologically sound grassland use, we have to begin paying for the full ecological costs of eating high on the food chain.

courtesy of Hamilton Greenwood

Do all patrons and livestock producers approve?

these pasture signs will be coming down year by year as the pastures are transferred to the province

Given the way the media has covered but mostly ignored the PFRA community pastures debate in this province, it is easy to assume that rural people, the current PFRA patrons, and livestock producers are all happy as clams with the plan that the Department of Agriculture has announced. That plan, of course, is to either sell or lease, to private individuals and consortiums, all 62 pastures, totalling more than 1.6 million acres of some of the most ecologically important grasslands on the northern Great Plains.

The minister of Agriculture, Lyle Stewart, says he has consulted with the cattle industry and the former PFRA grazing patrons, and the plan was devised by an advisory committee made up of such people. All is well, we are assured.

Today I spoke on the phone with a PFRA pasture patron who says that many people who raise livestock in Saskatchewan are not happy with the plan to sell or lease. Her name is Joanne Brochu and she and her husband are mixed farmers near the town of Colonsay.

“We have 146 head, a cow-calf operation," Joanne said, "but we only have five of our own grazing quarters so we need access to the community pasture.” For the last five years, the Brochus have been sending eighty to ninety head to the Hazel Dell PFRA pasture for much of the grazing season.

western kingbird

“If we lose access to that pasture, we will have no choice but to reduce our herd, and if that happens we will have to figure out if it's worth staying in cattle at all. I suspect when we do the math, it won’t be.”

When she heard that the federal pasture system was being dismantled, Joanne started doing some research into its history. “I don’t think I really appreciated the pastures and their role, what they have accomplished over the years.”

As an active member of the Saskatchewan Cattlemen's Association (SCA), Joanne speaks to other producers and she knows she is not the only one who likes the PFRA model, with well-managed pastures that remain in government hands to ensure fair allotment.

She told me that most of the ranchers and mixed farmers she speaks to would prefer the province retained ownership of the pastures as they are transferred from federal control. And they would like them to be managed under some kind of structure that suits the needs of the whole grazing community and not merely a few privileged owners and lessees. After doing some talking and research, Joanne drafted up a resolution for the Sask. Cattlemen's Association (SCA) that calls for just such a plan.

“It's been busy so I’ve only had time to have it presented at meetings for three of the nine SCA districts,” Joanne said, “but it passed at all three and in my district where I was able to be there to count the votes, it passed by a vote of eighteen to five. That's a pretty strong majority in my books.”

[Note: Please have a look at Joanne's comment below which she sent in after I posted this story--some very cogent remarks about the larger cultural and community effects of selling the pastures.]

Here is the actual wording from Joanne’s resolution: “BE IT RESOLVED that Saskatchewan Cattleman’s Association lobby the Province of Saskatchewan to retain ownership of the federally transitioned pastures and assist with the development of a pasture lands management structure to ensure the pastures continue to serve local producers and communities, and operate on a cost recovery basis.”

Ok, so thirty per cent of the districts of the SCA pass a strong resolution that calls on the SCA to lobby the government to retain ownership of the pastures, and one hundred per cent of those who considered Joanne’s resolution passed it. And yet, we hear that the livestock industry supports the existing plan. In fact, the SCA executive put out a press release endorsing the planned sale or lease of the first ten pastures on October 19, the same day the government made its announcement.

What is going on here? Just what do we mean when we say "livestock industry" anyway, and does it really speak with one voice? If there is a disconnect between what the "industry leaders" are saying and what the guys who get up in the middle of the night at calving time are saying, then what is causing it?

And why do we only hear from those who approve the province's plan? Why are we not hearing from the cattle producers and other rural folks who want the pastures retained and well-managed under the public trust? I will try to answer some of those questions in my next post.

Young eagles heading south: slide-show

Two weekends back, Karen and I made our fall eagle walk up to the headwaters of the branch of Indian Head Creek that flows into Cherry Lake. A few years ago we discovered that for several days each October eagles like to roost at the big beaver pond at the head of the tributary. They settle there by evening and sit in the big poplars that surround the pond. We have seen as many as fourteen roosting there, a mix of adult and sub-adult bald eagles.

This year, well before we arrived at the pond we began seeing young eagles circling low over the valley. They stayed with us for twenty minutes or more, making passes almost directly overhead, their tawny breast feathers catching the last gold of the sun. Once our necks got sore we lay down in the tall grass in the coulee bottom and watched in silence, my camera making the only sounds. A pair of ravens joined the eagles in their play just above the western rim of the coulee where an updraft was rising to meet the colder air aloft.

We counted four sub-adults, all apparently in their second year "white-belly II" plumage. Bald Eagles take four years to gain their adult plumage and in their immature feathering can be mottled dark brown and white to varying degrees. In some of the photos I took you can see the saw-tooth trailing edge of the wings, showing where two or three longer feathers remain from the last set of secondary feathers.

Just before we left the coulee, four adult eagles hove into view coming from the northeast. Here is a "movie" I put together using some of the photos I took that day.

Throne speech tomorrow: truth a casualty in the rush to sell the pastures

cattle left all summer on a badly abused private pasture near Indian Head

The Sask Party's rush to get the pasture issue settled and start selling land has made truth into a casualty:

The provincial government has claimed many things that must be challenged if we are to see what is really happening here: they say they have consulted with all the interest groups; they say there is nothing to worry about because they will only sell to patrons; they say the patrons are all the best stewards of the environment; they say that the Federal Species at Risk Act will be enforced on any land sold or leased to private interests. None of this is completely true. The Throne speech is tomorrow. It is a good time to call the Provincial Government to account on its plan and face the facts:

1. No, they have not consulted all people and groups concerned about the pastures. The five person advisory group who Minister Stewart worked with on this had two representatives of Sask. Stockgrowers and two representatives from the Sask. Cattlemen's Association--none of whom apparently have been recent patrons of a PFRA pasture.

The PFRA pastures lists somewhere over 2000 current patrons and there are many others who would like to be patrons in the future, some of them young producers--none of them have been consulted in any meaningful way. Four environmental organizations were brought in for private meetings one by one to be informed of the plan, but they were not given a chance to influence the decision in any meaningful way and from what I hear all still would prefer that not a single acre of the PFRA pastures ever be put up for sale. What about the 200-plus existing pasture employees and their families and communities? What about younger cattle producers who need help getting ahead? What about others who use to use the PFRA system but cannot afford to buy or lease at market values? What about First Nations? What about other rural and urban interest groups, people who want the pastures to remain part of Canada's natural heritage and public trust?

2. No, saying you will only sell to the patrons does not protect the land from re-sale. Leasing too will be impossible to monitor in ways that will protect the land from eventually falling into the hands of out of province interests.

Under this plan we will have no control over who is bankrolling "patron groups" or who the land will be re-sold to in five years. Will it end up in the hands of the meat industry’s big players—huge out of province cattle operators, or Cargill, XL Foods and JBS of Brazil?

3. No, the grazing patrons who will buy or lease the land are not capable of managing these ecological jewels at a level anywhere near the standard achieved by the PFRA (see yesterday's post with testimony from long-time pasture managers). A quick look at any land managed by many of the existing local grazing co-ops in the province will prove this point.

the endangered Loggerhead Shrike, one of 31 species at risk that depend on professional pasture management

4. No, the Federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) will not be enforced on these lands whether we sell or lease them. Andrea Olive from the University of Toronto is an expert on SARA and has done a case study on its application in Saskatchewan . I asked Andrea for her opinion on Lyle Stewart's recent assertion in letters to Saskatoon and Regina newspapers declaring that SARA will be enforced on pasture land sold or leased. Here is what she said:

"Lyle Stewart has no business saying that SARA will be enforced on private lands or in the province at all. SARA is a federal law. Since when are provincial governments in the business of applying federal laws? Moreover, SARA applies only to federal lands - about 5% of land in the country. As a province, SK actually has jurisdiction over private property matters. The only way SARA can apply to private land is through the "safety net" provision that states when provinces fail to protect species, the federal government will step in and do it. By taking the pasture lands out of the federal government's jurisdiction, the province is taking SARA off the land. How will the province protect the swift fox or burrowing owl or prairie grass on private property? Not through SARA. Not through the Wildlife Act. Is the provincial government going to create new legislation? Is the province going to create new species at risk legislation that will work with private landowners? Or legislation that is going to regulate private lands? That is the only way those species will continue to be protected in a similar fashion as they would under SARA.  SK is one of only 4 provinces to not have stand-alone legislation for species at risk.

 

So, at the end of the day, Lyle Stewart is removing a layer of protection for those species. They are going from Pasture Lands where SARA protects them to privately held lands where no laws are in place to enhance or ensure stewardship. Of course, private landowners are capable of protecting and stewarding SK. But there would need to be provisions in place such that the new landowners realize that endangered species occupy the land. And the new landowner might need some assistance, perhaps financial assistance, to properly steward the species.  How is Lyle Stewart going to ensure that is happening? Sounds like he is writing new species at risk legislation for SK. Congratulations to him!"

5. No, conservation easements are not enough to protect the biodiversity of the pastures. Who will be watching to enforce the easements and see that they do not get ploughed? And, even if they are not ploughed there are many ways to destroy a grassland ecosystem besides ploughing. Compare the bird and plant life on a PFRA pasture with that on a badly managed and overstocked piece of leased Crown Land and you will see what I mean.

These five concerns (there are others) should be enough to convince anyone that the Province must slow down and re-think this. We need to push for a moratorium on any attempt to dispose of the pastures and insist that nothing be done with them until an inclusive and independent consultation has been undertaken, allowing all Saskatchewan people to have a say on the topic of what will happen to the lands that the government's own ecologists will tell you are the most important conservation lands in the province. Until we do that and then figure out a model that will provide for professional management of the grasslands--at least at the level of our existing provincial community pastures (though that is a rock bottom minimum)--it is rash and indefensible to go forward with the plan announced on October 19.

And yes, there are many species at risk that depend on the ten pastures that the Government says it wants to sell first. Click on the image below for a list of species at risk found these lands being put up for bid:

What is the hurry to dispose of the pastures?

This wild penstemmon (image by Hamilton Greenwood) is one of hundreds of native plants on the PFRA pastures that rely on the good stewardship of the PFRA pasture managers

Having spoken to many people in the conservation community in the last couple of days, it is beginning to become clear that last week's announcement by Lyle Stewart, the Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister, was not the good news that it seemed at first.

A leasing option sounds better if it means that more of the land might remain under provincial ownership instead of being sold to private interests. Once land is privatized, there is little recourse to defend its natural ecosystems and species at risk from development or damaging agricultural practices.

But the more I think about this new plan announced by the province, the more it seems that we are being rushed into a decision on the pastures that over the long run will not serve Saskatchewan people or our endangered and threatened prairie species very well. I believe we can do much better than Minister Stewart's plan, which would simply hand Canada’s most ecologically intact and well-managed native grassland remnants over to what he is calling “patron-controlled operation.” In the end, the question of whether the successful patron groups buy or lease the first ten pastures being put up for bid may not be as important as the question of how they manage the land. Mr. Stewart has told us not to worry because the “patrons have been grazing these pastures for years; they know this land better than anyone else; they are our best environmental stewards.”

Last night I called up Mert Taylor, pasture manager for Bigstick PFRA Pasture and one of the PFRA’s longest-standing pasture managers, to ask him what he thought about this statement, which comes from Minister Stewart’s release on Friday.

Mert is as straight a shooter as you are going to find in the federal pasture system. Here is what he said about Lyle Stewart's assurances that the patrons are "our best environmental stewards."

“What a load of crap. I'm sorry, but I’ve been involved nearly all my life with these pastures: thirty years as a manager, and I rode twelve years before that. The number of patrons I have met who would even know where their cattle are at any given moment is about 1%. They know we are going to take care of their cows, they will get the best grass around and get their shots at the right time. Now, sure, there are always a few producers who know a bit about grass, but 90% of them are only concerned about the bottom line. Most are just so busy trying to make a living they can’t take care of a pasture the way we do. And it only makes sense—they have to look out for their self-interest like any business person. They aren’t going to be able to manage the grass the way we have.”

Then I spoke to another pasture employee who wished to remain anonymous and asked him the same question.

"The patrons are not the stewards of the pastures. The pasture managers are, but they have done it with a lot of support from professionals--grass specialists, water management specialists, livestock specialists, species at risk specialists. If we turn the management over to the patrons, it will be disastrous. We make decisions based on what is good for the grass and that is not always what will serve this year's bottom line. The patrons are mostly thinking about their calf crop that will be sold in the fall, and that's about it. When I started working for the pastures, I didn't understand how fragile this land can be. If I go out and drive my truck through the grass today, that trail will still be there fifteen years from now. If this pasture is given to the patrons to manage I'll have to move away. I might come back once to see how it looks, but I wouldn't be likely to come back a second time."




this shot of a pasture managed by an owner-operator in the Qu'Appelle Valley
shows that not all of our cattlemen are good stewards


The PFRA employees, some of the last real cowboys on the prairie, are an irreplacable resource and a keystone to the future management of these globally important grasslands. We owe it to them, to the heritage of all the PFRA has accomplished, and to our descendants to retain these important caretakers--the real stewards of Canada's last great pieces of native grassland.

A closing thought. The government's own ecologists will tell you that these are the most important conservation lands in the province. Why are we treating them like any other chunk of farmland?

Tomorrow I will try to post a response to Lyle Stewart's ludicrous assertion (in his letter to the editor in yesterday's Leader Post) that the Federal Species at Risk Act will be enforced on any land sold or leased under his plan.



Grazing practices matter: this shot by Hamilton Greenwood shows the difference from one side of the
fence to the other under different operator-owners



On second thought . . .

screen capture from PSAC campaign petition page

The more I look at the provincial government's new plan to sell and lease the 62 community pastures now up for grabs, the more I think we are being sold a bill of goods. (I will explain why in a separate post in a day or two.)

Meanwhile, the pasture managers who have been taking care of the pastures and who are represented by the Agriculture Union - PSAC have responded with a campaign we should all support.

Here is a quote from a news release the union put out on Friday: "The proposed sale of community pastures in Saskatchewan is supported by virtually no one in the province or the country and today's announcement by the provincial government raises more questions than it provides answers, according to the Agriculture Union - PSAC which has launched a campaign to protect the prairie grasslands in question. . . . With the support of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Saskatchewan branch and the Saskatchewan Environmental Society, the Agriculture Union has launched www.ProtectthePrairie.ca, a campaign to ensure that ironclad environmental and conservation guarantees are in place to protect the pastures going forward." Go to their site to join their campaign as soon as you can.

Here is a digital story they created for the campaign--it makes the point beautifully: