ALUS History

New Environmentalists

ALUS was born from the recognition that farmers are not only in the business of producing food and fibre, but also ecosystem goods and services that deliver valuable, tangible benefits to Canadians. Kitchen table conversations with farmers and community members about the shortcomings of traditional approaches to farm-based conservation motivated farmer Ian Wishart (then President, Keystone Agricultural Producers) to think up a new approach to conservation. This new approach was called Alternative Land Use Services or ALUS.  

An Environmental Partnership

Farmers in Norfolk County, Ontario, were ready to prove the ALUS concept. They voluntarily committed personal time, energy, money and land to launch the Norfolk County Pilot Project to test the new model. The purpose, principles and outcomes framing the pilot were identified in Alternative Land Use Services, co-authored by Dr. Robert Bailey (Delta Waterfowl Foundation) and Dave Reid (Norfolk Land Stewardship Council).

Dave Reid, co-author of Farmer’s Conservation Plan.

According to the Plan, the pilot would test the feasibility of the ALUS model and establish a new environmental business partnership between farmers and Canadians that would create a marketplace for ecosystem goods and services produced through alternative agricultural land use practices. One of the keystone principles guiding implementation and championed by Plan co-author Dave Reid was that this new partnership needed to be administered and managed by the local community through a Partnership Advisory Committee (PAC). Reid believed that community-led programming would engage the community in delivering effective, locally relevant solutions to local environmental issues.

The pilot would officially launch in 2008 with the PAC concept proving to be foundational to its success. Norfolk would go on to become the oldest continuously running ALUS program in Canada and Reid would later serve as ALUS’ Eastern Hub Manager and Director of Research.

Meanwhile, in the Rural Municipality of Blanshard, Manitoba, Keystone Agricultural Producers was one step ahead. In collaboration with Delta Waterfowl Foundation, they launched the first ALUS pilot in 2006 under a centralized delivery model with funding from the Government of Manitoba and The W. Garfield Weston Foundation (now known as The Weston Family Foundation). The pilot ended after its three–year term. It wouldn’t be until 2014 that ALUS would re-establish in the community under the PAC model as ALUS Little Saskatchewan River (now Assiniboine West), which would include around a million acres of land within its jurisdiction.

Gaining Momentum

Word was spreading.

George T. Webster, then Minister of Agriculture, Prince Edward Island (PEI), had caught wind of ALUS and arrived on-site of the official launch of the Norfolk County Pilot Project in 2008 to see what it was all about. Staring out across a restored field of native tallgrass prairie on Bryan Gilvesy’s farm, YU Ranch (one of the Pilot Project’s first demonstration farms), he needed little convincing the project held promise. Shortly after, PEI became the first and only provincially supported ALUS program. Co-managed by the PEI Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and the PEI Department of Communities, Land and Environment, the program continues to be delivered provincewide.

Other communities were quick to follow and ALUS would soon find itself with a growing waiting list of individuals and organizations wanting to participate.

Communities that joined ALUS between 2008 – 2015

Taking Flight

By the end of 2015, ALUS had a proven program delivery model founded in science, sound governance principles and strong community involvement through the Partnership Advisory Committees (PACs) that administered local ALUS communities. Up until this point, ALUS had been operating under the auspices of the Delta Waterfowl Foundation, but it was time to leave the nest.

ALUS CEO, Bryan Gilvesy, speaks at the 2016 ALUS relaunch event.

In 2016, ALUS relaunched as ALUS Canada, A Weston Family Initiative—an independent, registered charitable organization—with long-time farmer participant and ALUS volunteer Bryan Gilvesy at the helm and Lynn Bishop managing operations. Coinciding with the relaunch, The W. Garfield Weston Foundation announced a $5 million investment to support ALUS’ expansion across the country and its newly announced corporate sponsorship program, New Acre™ Project. The investment reinforced ALUS as a leader in farm-based conservation and cemented its commitment to delivering ecosystem services in an authentic, sustainable and transparent way.

Leading the Way

Demand for nature-based climate solutions was increasing and ALUS was growing to meet it. ALUS began rapidly expanding its national team to increase delivery capacity and in 2018, ALUS brought on Director of Corporate Partnerships and Business Development, Katherine Balpataky, to help purpose-driven corporations meet their Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) goals through New Acre Project. Corporations were beginning to recognize the value of nature and biodiversity both for their businesses and the communities in which they worked and served. They saw New Acre Project as a vehicle to directly invest in the creation of acres of ecosystem goods and services in exchange for tangible, verifiable metrics that told the story of their on-the-ground impact.

In 2019, TD Bank Group helped officially launch New Acre Project. In 2020, Silk® (Danone Canada) sponsored 90 New Acre™ Project acres of ecosystem services in Alberta, Ontario and Québec. In 2021, ALUS announced a partnership with A&W and Cargill to create Grazing Forward—a three-year initiative to expand regenerative agriculture practices to address climate change within the beef supply chain in 20 communities across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. A year later, ALUS also partnered with General Mills on a two-year regenerative agriculture pilot program focused on soil health in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The pilot project, known as Growing Roots, supports General Mills’ commitment to advance regenerative agriculture on one million acres of farmland by 2030.

But it wasn’t just corporations taking notice. In May 2022, Sustainable Development Technology Canada announced a $5 million investment to increase ALUS’ capacity to deliver across the country and support its work in building ecosystem service quantification models.

By the end of 2023, 39 communities across Canada were delivering the ALUS program and nearly 1,800 farmers and ranchers were working to produce ecosystem goods and services for the benefit of all Canadians.

Communities that joined ALUS between 2016 – 2023

The Future

ALUS is driving the development of leading-edge quantification methodologies and metrics to more accurately value nature-based solutions and their outcomes. It will continue to recognize and promote environmental activity as economic activity and work within this framework to better support farmers and ranchers in producing ecosystem services, as well as to help purpose-driven business meet their ES&G objectives.

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