MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY - Agriculture producers in Mountain View County have access to expert advice from specialists under a new program, agricultural service board (ASB) members heard last week.
During the board’s regularly scheduled meeting, Laura Gibney, manager of Foothills Forage and Grazing Association outlined the new program.
“As many of you will know, Alberta Agriculture in their wisdom has shut down the ag info centre that producers could call for one-on-one expertise and that loss left a huge gaping void across the province for that service,” said Gibney.
In response, the association has moved forward with a new program called Agronomy and Forage Specialist Support, she said.
“Through our umbrella association, the Agriculture Research and Extension Council of Alberta, several of our groups put in an application and were successful in getting to operate a forage specialist support program,” she said.
“So what we’ve done is taken those dollars and managed to contract some of these specialists back. We do require that people be a Foothills Forage member to access this. They would call or email us and we would put them in touch with the relevant forage specialist.”
The program is now available to association members.
“For full transparency, it is a 50-50 matching fund, so half of the money comes from the government and the other half for this program comes out of our coffers and our resources,” she said.
“I point that out because it is a free service that we offer to members but it is a very expensive service that we are offering. That is one of the things that we can offer Mountain View County ratepayers as well.”
More information see the www.foothillsforage.com website.
