Harvesting triple wins

In recognition that each change made in agricultural production brings unique challenges and opportunities that affect outcomes in all areas of impact, Dr. Christy Morrissey (PhD), professor in the Department of Biology in the College of Arts and Science at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), seeks to advance our understanding of the value of ecosystem services while providing farmers with guidance and tools for making land-use decisions.

The work of the Prairie Precision Sustainability Network has “the goal to find that sweet spot, where you're doing something that is not only good for the environment but also brings social and economic benefits,” she says. “That’s one of the reasons this project has been taking off, because it ticks all three sustainability boxes.”

Morrissey and her team work directly with farmers to apply insights from data and machine-learning models to measures for optimizing land use. “With a conventional approach, farmers may think that more land under production equals more yield, yet we know that there are vast differences in profitability,” she explains. “Marginal areas, by definition, are consistently unprofitable, for example, due to saline, wet or dry soils or other challenges and don't produce enough to offset the costs of seed and chemical.”

This means these areas are often sinks for fertilizer and pesticide applications, which come with both economic and environmental impacts, Morrissey says. “There are better uses for areas where growing crops is not cost effective, for example, converting them to forages or more naturalized habitat.”

The project – which uses satellite imagery trained on combine yield data to locate marginal croplands across the Prairie region – started two years ago and now has over 70 farmers participating in the study.

“We’ve been asking farmers for access to their precision yield data, ideally covering a number of years,” says Morrissey, adding that this information allows the team to train machine-learning models to correctly interpret visual information gained from satellites.

Once trained on enough data, the models’ predictive capabilities “can fill in the holes on areas where we don’t have yield data,” she notes. “For dominant crops like wheat and canola, we already have fairly good predictions, and we’re gathering more data to be able to predict marginal land for some of the other Prairie crops.”

Capturing data for a number of years – especially since 2017, when the resolution of satellite imagery started to allow insights on a 10-metre-by-10-metre scale – is especially meaningful since the Prairies are subject to drought-deluge cycles.

“The more data we have under these different cyclical regimes, the better we get at predicting what will happen in various parts of a field under different conditions,” says Dr. Morrissey. “The plan is to be able to forecast what areas will look like under dry or wet scenarios, which will allow farmers to make forward-thinking decisions about improving the resilience of their lands rather than reacting to what is happening at the time.”

Big-picture research like the Prairie Precision Sustainability Network requires insights from a number of perspectives. While Morrissey’s lab focuses on how converting marginal areas can contribute to pesticide use reduction and bring benefits to birds and insects, her colleagues from USask’s College of Agriculture and Bioresources and the Universities of Calgary, Manitoba and Waterloo offer expertise in agricultural socioeconomics, pollinators, landscape ecology, soil health, native and tame forage production – and AI for big data.

For USask President Peter Stoicheff, this is a prime example of the university’s “unusual and unique combination of strengths due to having 17 colleges – or faculties – represented.

“The high number of disciplines has allowed us to become very interdisciplinary, and that's a hallmark of the research we do at the University of Saskatchewan,” says Stoicheff. “Large global challenges like food security, climate change and population health are not going to be solved by one discipline or college or even a single university.” 

For investigations affecting food systems, USask has built significant research infrastructure and expertise, he says. “We now talk about this in the context of one health, which is at the confluence of human, animal and environmental health. Given the complexity of these issues, it is no surprise that solving them requires large collaborations.”

Where the Global Institute for Food Security with the Crop Development Centre and the College of Agriculture and Bioresources provide an agriculture lens, the Department of Computer Science adds technology and data analytics capabilities. The School of Environment and Sustainability brings a sustainability perspective while the College of Arts and Science and the School of Public Policy can contribute important viewpoints about how to apply research insights to societal challenges in meaningful ways. 

“We're able to bring all of that – and more – together in one university, where we understand that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” says Stoicheff, adding that cutting-edge research is also taking place at VIDO and the Global Institute for Water Security.

“These impressive research and innovation strengths allow us to advance our one health vision,” he notes, “they have also attracted a wide range of partners, not only from other universities but also from industry, government and communities.”

The project has attracted 12 diverse partners from First Nations, non-profit organizations, financial institutions, government agencies, the agriculture industry and farming equipment manufacturers, says Morrissey. “We have a diverse group of collaborators who are committed to the idea of doing something good for the environment while providing more tools for farmers.”

Since agricultural production is highly dependent on weather and climate, being able to predict greater extremes in wet or dry conditions as well as temperature increases – and relate this information to land productivity – can help inform a farm’s economic strategy.

The Prairie Precision Sustainability Network is working to provide agronomic tools for “evaluating the profitability of different areas of land,” Morrissey says. “Farmers can enter their anticipated revenues as well as their expenses – accounting for the costs of inputs that have recently seen significant price increases – on a micro level to decide where they could maximize gains by taking marginal lands out of production.” 

Yet beyond saving money on inputs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there are other benefits that can be reflected in the bottom line, she suggests. “There are small but measurable increases in crop yield when we provide more habitat for beneficial insects like pollinators and pest predators.”

What’s more, as the value of biodiversity and carbon storage is coming to the forefront, “this brings the potential of making the maintenance of areas in forage or perennial cover more profitable through with carbon and biodiversity markets that provide payments for the ecosystem services they provide,” Morrissey says. “A big part of our project is about quantifying what we gain from converting marginal areas.”

Using empirical data can help to frame the value of services provided by natural habitat – from biodiversity to carbon sequestration – in monetary terms, this could inform how to incentivize adoption through payments, tax credits or lower insurance premiums for converting marginal areas. 

Converting and maintaining marginal land as natural habitat can help farmers save money and grow better crops on less land. It can provide social good for communities in the form of a more naturalized landscape. And it is a positive step that “could help Canada achieve its net-zero goals by reducing the environmental impact of agriculture and harnessing the power of nature to sequester more carbon,” adds Morrissey.

Originally published via the Globe and Mail.