Farmers' conservation efforts make an impact on Lake Simcoe ecology

Friday, March 15, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

Farmers have contributed to the major progress the Ontario government says is being made to protect and restore Lake Simcoe.

The provincial government released its second annual report on the health of Lake Simcoe on March 8 showing the considerable progress made to improve the shoreline, reduce phosphorous levels and stimulate a return of native lake trout. The Ontario government’s plan to rehabilitate the Great Lakes watersheds and tributaries includes the protection of Lake Simcoe.

Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Mark Wales, who sits on the Lake Simcoe coordinating committee, says farmers don’t farm right up to the lake so they haven’t had to do different practices when it comes to shoreline restoration. The Environmental Farm Plan program is able to track the different types of projects farmers in the Lake Simcoe watershed have done. Most of it has been erosion control, such as planting trees and grass buffers.

“We’re the only sector that’s actually doing a lot and you can measure it,” he says. “Agriculture has been doing the right thing. It needs to be encouraged to keep doing the right thing and government needs to keep funding the Environmental Farm Plan program.”

Farmers have also been able to tap into the Lake Simcoe Farm Stewardship program to fund environmental projects.

There aren’t many livestock farmers left in the watershed but producers with animals are “doing proper manure storage and runoff storage along with milk house wash water treatment,” Wales says.

The government’s report says in the Lake Simcoe watershed agriculture generates more than $300 million annually. The lake is the largest inland lake in southwestern Ontario, not including the Great Lakes.

In 2009, the government released a Lake Simcoe Protection Plan geared to cutting phosphorous pollution and improving water quality along with fish habitats. BF