Resilient Agricultural Landscape Program investing in improved agricultural lands

St. John’s, NL – Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada 

The federal and provincial governments are investing in projects that will help farmers adopt beneficial land-use management practices that will increase environmental resiliency among farms in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Funding from the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP) Resilient Agricultural Landscape Program helped support 17 initiatives in Newfoundland and Labrador in the program’s first year (2023-24), with an investment of more than $708,000. To date in 2024-25, 30 projects with a value of $868,039 have been approved to implement Beneficial Management Practices on 487 acres of land.

The current 2024-25 intake period saw increased interest with 40 applications submitted during this period – almost double the number of applications received in 2023-24. Review of applications for the current intake period is ongoing. Applications will open again in Spring 2025. 

The Resilient Agricultural Landscape Program (RALP) focuses on improving ecosystems through: 

• Activities that decrease the amount of marginal and fragile land used for cropping.
• Activities that maintain healthy, resilient soils while naturally mitigating the impacts of climate change on farms.
• Agri-environmental beneficial management practices that seek to increase and enhance multiple ecological goods and services.
• Awareness and knowledge transfer, extension services, program development and product development services related to eligible RALP activities and outreach. 

Initiatives include maintaining and providing healthy soil and water resources, wildlife habitat and biodiversity, and adapting to the impacts of climate change. Specific projects and funding amounts are listed in the Backgrounder.