When Clarendon farmers Kristine Amyotte and Robbie Beck converted a new piece of land from pasture into a crop field, they soon realized the toll it was having on the soil. 

The land in question formed a valley, at the bottom of which lay a stream. During the spring thaw or heavy rains, the water would race down the fields towards the stream, where it then flowed out to the Ottawa River. 

When the fields were pastured, the water was slowed by the grasses, but when they were converted to crop, the soil void of denser root systems, the water suddenly had a cleared path to its destination, and was quickly dragging the fields’ soil into the stream. 

“We had just paid for this farmland and you could literally see you were losing it. The creek was eroding, the gap just kept getting wider and wider,” Amyotte said. “The regular riparian buffer, by law it’s three metres, well that just wasn’t holding.” 

Amyotte and Beck wanted to find a natural solution to their erosion challenges, so reached out to ALUS, an organization that partners with farmers and ranchers to help them protect their land and its ecosystems. 

ALUS – which stands for Alternative Land Use Solutions – was created in 2008, founded on the principle that farmers have a direct hand in caring for the natural world, and should be empowered as such. The non-profit works in communities across the country to understand farmers’ needs when it comes to managing the sustainability of their land, and connect them with funding and other resources to be able to do so. 

While ALUS programs have been supporting farmers across the country since its inception, it was only introduced in the Outaouais in 2021. In its first five years here, it has developed projects on 64 farms across the Outaouais, setting 353 acres aside for projects that somehow protect the land or its inhabitants.

In MRC Pontiac, 17 farms have taken on ALUS projects to date, including 5.3 kilometres of riparian buffers, 78 acres where farmers are practicing delayed haying, to protect endangered species and 400 acres where cover crops are being used. 

“Our goal is to protect water and protect the environment, of course, but it’s really to help farmers know their land better, and give them a bit of power back through recognizing what they already do, because sometimes they’re being so judged,” explained Maria José Maezo, the agro-environmental consultant hired by the UPA Outaouais-Laurentides to develop the ALUS program in this region.

“We walk the farm with them, answer lots of questions and see what they need and how we can help.”

Through the ALUS program, farmers are compensated for the land they set aside. In the Pontiac, a total of $49,500 has been allocated to farms running these projects. 

“We pay per acreage of the projects that are put into the ground, so we recognize the value of the nature that they have to take care of,” José Maezo explained. “So instead of growing a crop you grow nature.” 

Amyotte was invited to sit on ALUS Outaouais’ governing committee when it was founded. She said upon learning more about the organization, she realized it offered exactly the help she was looking for on her farm.

“I really love their theme, ‘Where farming and nature meet’. That really resonated with me,” Amyotte said. 

She worked with José Maezo to develop a larger riparian buffer along the stream,  grown using grasses indigenous to the area, to protect its shores from being swept away. 

“In some areas, instead of a three-metre riparian buffer, we have 10,” she said, acknowledging that while this may seem excessive, it’s worth it to her to prevent the land from further eroding.

Amyotte was so satisfied with the success of the project that she spread the word to neighbours, including the Langs just down the road in Clarendon. 

“Sometimes it’s a lot more work to do the government programs than it would be to just do it yourself, but ALUS has made it easy. They don’t make it super complicated,” said Kendal Lang, who works for her family cash-crop farm RM Lang. 

She has worked with ALUS to commit to a delayed haying on a couple of fields to help protect the endangered Bobolink bird, and to develop a wider riparian buffer along a waterway that runs between a field and Highway 148 in Bristol.  

“It’s still just getting going, it’s not where it should be yet, but it just takes time to get the watercourse developed,” Lang said. 

José Maezo reinforced that core to ALUS’ mission is to support farmers, and not make their lives more difficult. 

“We really take a friendly approach. There’s no regulations, there’s no risk about infractions, so they can feel free about asking questions and not being judged if they’re doing things not perfectly,” she said. 

She noted the organization’s project priorities are constantly evolving depending on the funding they secure. 

“When we started, it was species at risk related, because that was the major funding we had. So getting the farmers to know the species at risk on their land and how they can protect them was our first goal, in a way,” she said.

“But as we get to know the farmers and we document better the needs of the farmers themselves, we’re able to kind of work backwards and look for the funding the farmers are asking for.” 

She said for the organization’s next five years, she hopes to increase its visibility in the community.

“Not only among farmers but around the community in general, because they need to know all the solutions farmers can provide to protect the environment.”