On a mixed irrigated farm near Picture Butte, Eric Leffers is working toward something grounded: a system that protects soil, supports biodiversity and still makes economic sense.
Eric farms roughly 1,000 irrigated acres with his dad, growing primarily forage crops — including export Timothy hay, alfalfa and forage seed. Hay is the backbone of the operation, both agronomically and financially, and it’s the crop Eric enjoys growing most. He grew up in the area and has been farming this land with his family for 12 years.
That context shapes every decision he makes. As Eric puts it, “You can’t just throw out what you’re good at.” For him, exploring regenerative or “non-conventional” practices doesn’t mean abandoning what works — it means refining and building on the strengths already present in the system.
That mindset echoes through the farm’s history. Eric’s great-grandparents immigrated from the Netherlands in the 1950s, seeking new opportunities in southern Alberta. Early family stories speak to a level of resilience and adaptability that still informs today’s operation: ranching near Bow City with limited infrastructure, hauling tractors long distances by truck to reach remote land and cutting ice from frozen rivers to water cattle in winter. Eric’s grandfather began his career as a mechanic in Edmonton before moving south to farm in the 1970s, joining other family members already established in the region.
Adaptation has always been part of the story — and today’s exploration of regenerative principles is simply the next chapter.
What Does Regenerative Really Mean?
Like many producers, Eric has been navigating the growing number of approaches, recommendations and learnings surrounding regenerative agriculture. Over time, he has experimented with reducing fertilizer, adopting no-till, introducing cover crops and trialling alternative fertility approaches. Some of these changes initially appeared promising, but Eric found that for his land, not all of them paid off.
Cutting fertilizer, for example, worked well for a few seasons before productivity declined. That experience reinforced a key lesson: regeneration without balance can be difficult to sustain long term.
“There’s a lot of information out there about regenerative agriculture”
Eric’s perspective reflects a broader challenge in agriculture. There can be pressure to adopt regenerative practices in an all-or-nothing way, often framed as a checklist of actions rather than a process of learning. On the ground, however, farming decisions are shaped by climate, crop systems, infrastructure and economics. For Eric, that means approaching change cautiously, trialling ideas and moving forward with what proves workable in his context.
Shifting Towards Balanced Fertility
One of the most significant pivots on Eric’s farm has been a move toward balanced fertility, supported by guidance from an agronomist. Rather than eliminating inputs entirely, his focus shifted to improving nutrient balance and prioritizing crop quality over maximizing nitrogen-driven yield.
The results have been encouraging, particularly in perennial forage stands. Eric has observed longer-lasting hay stands that remain productive for more years before thinning or becoming dominated by weeds such as dandelions. In tandem with improved stand longevity, yields have begun to climb and economic performance has strengthened.
This approach highlights an important nuance: regenerative progress does not necessarily mean removing inputs altogether. In some systems, optimization and reduction — guided by data and observation — may offer a more practical pathway than complete elimination.
Rethinking Hay as a Soil Builder
A recurring assumption in agriculture is that hay production depletes soil because nutrients leave the farm with harvested forage. Eric challenges that idea by comparing hay systems with annual grain production.
In grain systems, nutrients are exported through both grain and straw, particularly in irrigated contexts where residue management can limit opportunities for incorporation. Perennial forage systems, by contrast, maintain living roots throughout the growing season and into dormancy.
“We have a living root system in a vegetative state all the entire growing season.”
Even during winter, those roots remain alive, contributing to soil structure and biological activity in the ground. This raises an interesting question: if hay exports nutrients but simultaneously sustains continuous root activity and soil cover, might it be less depleting than often assumed?
Given that in Alberta, much of the hay grown might go to feed cattle just down the road, Eric considers that hay has potential soil-building component within irrigated rotations and is not as depleting as some presume.
Cover Crops in Reality
Eric’s experimentation with cover crops has provided valuable insights, though not always straightforward successes. Residual species such as red clover and chicory created new management considerations, when they persisted into subsequent cropping years. In other cases, perennials went to seed and exited the combine, unintentionally reseeding fields.
Herbicide needs added complexity for integration. Spraying for weed control sometimes reduced underseeded cover crops, while attempts to establish cover crops after grain seeding were frequently overshadowed by the main crop. Irrigation added another layer of complexity, influencing timing and competition dynamics.
These experiences reinforce an important message: cover crops can take time and experimentation to integrate successfully. Yet the lessons learned remain valuable, contributing to the knowledge base that informs ongoing experimentation — including participation in polyculture trials designed to explore diverse species mixtures and management strategies.
Pollinator Strips: Trials and Learning
As part of on-farm experimentation, Eric participated in the Alberta Polyculture Trials — a producer-driven initiative helping crop producers across Alberta explore practical, profitable ways to improve soil health, enhance biodiversity and build climate resilience–starting right in their own fields.
Facilitated by the Regenerative Agriculture Lab (RAL), the trials are part of a broader effort to grow Alberta’s regenerative agriculture system. RAL brings together producers, researchers, food retailers and other key players in a social innovation process aimed at testing ideas, sharing knowledge and creating real, community-driven change with environmental, social and economic benefits.
Eric’s first year in the trials involved seeding a perennial pollinator blend along field margins, where limited irrigation meant they didn’t establish as he’d hoped. During the second year, he took a different approach, seeding an annual pollinator strip directly through the centre of an irrigated pivot field, ensuring it received the same water and fertility as surrounding crops. The strip — roughly a quarter mile long and about 30 feet wide — became a visible feature of the landscape.
The results were striking.
The strip buzzed with insect activity throughout the growing season, while birds fed on seeds from species such as sunflowers and millet during winter. The experience reinforces a key lesson: if producers want to evaluate conservation practices fairly, they should be managed with the same care and resources as cash crops.
“If you’re going to try a pollinator strip, put it where your best crop would go.”
As Eric notes, if pollinator habitat is placed only on marginal land, disappointing results may simply reflect poor growing conditions rather than the concept itself. The trial also generated practical insights for Eric. Certain species, such as radish, bolted quickly and produced large quantities of seed, influencing termination timing and future mix composition. He still has questions about long-term management, including whether strips should be rotated across fields to balance ecological benefits and agronomic considerations.
Striking the Business Balance
Throughout these experiments, one principle remains constant in Eric’s mind: farms are businesses. While innovation and curiosity drive change, new practices must be economically viable.
Eric emphasizes that experimentation is valuable when it also supports the farm business. Evaluating new systems may take years — sometimes a decade — before meaningful conclusions emerge. In the meantime, producers must balance risk with financial sustainability.
“At the end of the day, it can’t cost you money”
That pragmatic lens shapes Eric’s openness to simple solutions, such as using winter cereals to maintain living roots, broadcasting bin-run seed for opportunistic cover or allowing volunteer growth to provide soil cover when feasible. In many cases, simple and accessible approaches may outperform more complex strategies.
The Journey Continues
For Eric, regenerative agriculture is not a checklist or a destination to reach. It is an evolving process shaped by observation, experimentation and recalibration. Over time, he has become more cautious but not less curious — seeking balance in fertility management, exploring opportunities to integrate manure and continuing to provide habitat for pollinators and birds.
That perspective reflects a broader truth across agriculture: regeneration rarely looks like a perfectly curated blueprint. Instead, it emerges through incremental change, adaptation to local conditions and a willingness to learn from both successes and setbacks.
On this irrigated forage farm near Picture Butte, regeneration takes the form of balanced fertility, perennial root systems, opportunistic grazing and a pollinator strip planted not on the margins, but through the heart of the farm’s most productive field.
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Read more about polycultures
Yaks, Polycultures and the Power of Community
Near Castor, Alberta, fourth-generation farmer Dave Weber is raising yaks and experimenting with polycultures to build soil health, extend grazing and keep his operation resilient. Blending tradition with innovation, Dave is proving that even in challenging prairie conditions, there’s room to grow differently.
Seeding Change: Polycultures at Work at Muddy Creek Ranch
At Muddy Creek Ranch in Fairview, Alberta, rancher Garth Shaw is blending generations of farming tradition with new regenerative approaches to create a more resilient future for his land, livestock and family.
This blog explores how Garth’s shift to polycultures is transforming more than just his fields. From balancing winter feeding strategies to building community resilience, Garth’s story highlights the power of staying open to learning and leading with care—for the land, the animals and the people connected to both.
EP66 Polycultures
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Have you ever found yourself scratching your head trying to make sense of all those terms like polycultures, cocktail crops, intercropping, cover crops, companion cropping, and relay crops? It’s understandable! They all seem to be part of the vast landscape of good land stewardship practices, like sustainable agriculture, organic agriculture, agroecology, permaculture, and regenerative agriculture. Oh, and let’s not forget our personal favorite—agricultural climate solutions. But here’s the thing: are these different systems truly distinct, or are they more closely related than we think?