If nothing’s growing on that corner of your land, why not put it to good use?

That’s the thinking behind Alternative Land Use Services, a pilot project underway in Norfolk.

"A lot of bush lots exist on farmland," says Kristen Thompson, Norfolk’s ALUS co-ordinator. "This program puts it to use."

The program is fairly straightforward: Farmers are paid $150 per acre over three years to rent out a portion of their property for new, environmentally friendly uses. These can include planting new carbon-friendly native ground cover, trees and grasses that encourage new wildlife habitats and the cleansing of watercourses. The program is funded by a variety of public and private sources.

Norfolk farmer Vic Janulis is pleased with the results of the ALUS work on his property. In addition to a small field of tallgrass prairie, Janulis’s farm now boasts a 10-metre riparian buffer of creeping red fescue and white clover along a creek, a move that has improved the creek’s water quality by controlling erosion.

But not everyone appreciates the project.

Said Elizabeth Brubaker, executive director of
Toronto-based Environment Probe: "(The project) rightly rewards farmers for providing environmental services
but wrongly rewards them for repairing environmental damage."

It makes no sense to reward farmers for providing waterfowl habitat but not to keep cattle out of a stream – something he should do without getting a subsidy to do it, she said. "It replaces ‘polluter pays’ with ‘polluter gets.’"

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