Impact of Conservation Tillage on Landscape & Ecological Services: Challenges and Opportunities

Environment Canada’s (EC) mandates to protect and strengthen Canada’s environment and economy can be achieved more effectively by working cooperatively with individuals and agencies in agricultural and other sectors. To help in achieving these overarching environmental and economic goals, EC has been working with the agricultural sector, governments and landowners to help identify, evaluate and implement agricultural practices, programs and policies to maintain or enhance Canada’s air, water and biological resources and Canada’s economic competitiveness. These environmental and economic goals also are critical components of EC’s Science Plan (2006) and its results planning structure. In this presentation, I will review briefly the main environmental challenges and opportunities concerning the continued use and development of no-till operations. Although there is a range of conservation seeding practices, here I focus on no-till, a practice that involves a single pass of equipment over a field with direct seeding into the previous year’s crop. This executive summary is organized on the basis of key EC mandates noted above, with special emphasis on natural upland and wetland habitats of the Canadian prairies