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Farm-Scape, Episode 2302

Keystone Agricultural Producers says the Manitoba government's decision to refer proposed water quality legislation to the Clean Environment Commission creates another level of uncertainty for the province's agricultural community.

Last week the Manitoba government released its draft Nutrient Management Regulation under the Water Protection Act and draft amendments to the Livestock Manure and Mortalities Management Regulation under the Environment Act for public comment.

KAP president David Rolfe says, while government has agreed to several key changes to the two proposals, the decision to refer the regulations to the clean environment commission for further review and placing a temporary pause on hog industry development during that review is cause for concern.

The issue over moving the regulations through the clean environment process means that, two things. It's created a level of uncertainty as to whether changes or recommendations for changes will be made to those.

The other thing is that it delays implementation of the regulations and we don't know how long for so we continue on with a level of uncertainty, not knowing how long the process is going to take or whether changes will be proposed to the regulations as they currently exist.

And then there's the pause in livestock development, hog industry development that the province has initiated and that's certainly a very unusual step for the province and again there is certainly no time scale set for that and it's created again a level of uncertainty in our industry at a time when it was critical that industry had some certainty behind it, had some confidence in knowing that Manitoba was the place to invest and the place to be.

It certainly has created that level of uncertainty for the industry.

At the price of the commercial fertilizers today people have to come to realize how valuable of a resource that these fertilizers are and how good they are for the land. With the new technologies of injection and incorporation, all this we've come a long way in how we utilize this.

Rolfe notes it's unprecedented for government to move proposed regulations through the clean environment commission process and it's unprecedented for the province to halt all further development until further notice.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.