Concern in cattle country in Manitoba

Tuesday afternoon this week I met with members of the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association to talk about the difficult situation many Manitoba cattle farmers are facing.

One of the helpful measures which we have been advocating is to provide financial support to farmers for the environmental services they provide to all of us. This is being done now in Blanchard Municipality, and this program should be taken province wide. There would need to be some modifications to the Blanchard pilot program to best reflect the environmental contributions of cattle farmers. With such modifications, it would be a significant help to cattle farmers who are generally very helpful in preserving and maintaining good environmental quality and in helping keep the quality of the water in our lakes and rivers clean. The modifications are needed to reflect the real contributions of cattle farmers and to help further improve cattle farmers environmental stewardship of the land in Manitoba.