May 26, 2025

EP 80 – Meet the Prairie Precision Sustainability Network

50 minutes

Welcome to Restoring the Margins, our brand new podcast series, in partnership with the Prairie Precision Sustainability Network (PPSN). This series explores how agriculture producers in the Prairies can take their marginal lands and turn them into something both more profitable and more beneficial for the environment. In this opening episode, we’re joined by Dr. Christy Morrissey, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan and a lead researcher with the PPSN.

Dr. Morrissey walks us through the PPSN project; a prairies-wide project that uses satellite imagery combined with yield and profit data to help identify marginal lands, with the goal of supporting producers to restore them. Together, we explore how restoring these lands can be a win-win: helping producers improve their bottom line while also supporting biodiversity and the environment.

Highlights:

2:05 – First off – what are marginal lands?

8:22 – Dr. Morrissey explains the history of PPSN and how the project came to fruition

12:24 – An overview of PPSN, phase 1 of the project and Dr. Morrissey’s role

14:47 – Is it a lot of work for the producer to restore marginal lands?

16:55 – Dr. Morrissey talks about the plans for phase 2, Marginal Land Solutions

19:17 – Are you looking for more producers to be involved?

22:27 – How do they identify the marginal land areas?

26:46 – Dr. Morrissey explains why they use profit to define marginal areas, not yield

29:06 – When looking for participants, are you interested in a certain type of grower?

30:44 – Dr. Morrissey’s background and how she got into this area of work

33:30 – How you can go about restoring marginal lands and why it matters

37:30 – Dr. Morrissey explains some of the species that, when planted, help restore margins

41:20 – How can you get involved if you’re a producer who’s interested in benefitting from the margins?

43:09 – Dr. Morrissey closes with her long term ambitions for the project and its impact

Useful links:

PPSN Website

This podcast has been funded by the Prairie Precision Sustainability Network and the University of Saskatchewan.

Music credits: We’d like to thank Floating Temples for the use of their track Spring Wood in this series.

Want to learn more?

Our Farmer’s Blog is also a great source for stories of producers in Alberta who are going the extra mile with their management practices for the land, food and their communities.

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By Rural Routes to Climate Solutions