Guardians of the Grasslands game teaches students about the role cattle play in protecting a key resource

Mar 01, 2023

The documentary "Guardians of the Grasslands" has now evolved into an online game for students in Grade 7 to 10.

Students in Alberta will be the first to experience the online grazing simulation game which focuses on the ecosystem services provided by raising cattle on grasslands.

Amie Peck, manager of public and stakeholder engagement with the Canadian Cattle Association says they had excellent uptake with the film in classrooms.

"We wanted to create a unique experience for students from every background to imagine themselves as land stewards and discover how different decisions result in changes to the ecosystem."

Through the game students will learn how cattle promote carbon sequestration and provide wildlife habitat through rotational grazing on native grasslands, by moving cattle at the right time, and leaving enough grass behind.

While the first version of the game is specific to Alberta, additional classroom versions are being planned for Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Ontario for the fall of 2023.

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Video: Selling Hay for 40 Years: Fritz Trauttmansdorff, Dunlea Farms

Fritz Trauttmansdorff came to Canada from Austria in 1980, bought a 45-cow dairy farm at Jerseyville, and within two years had more hay than he knew what to do with. He sold the quota in 1986, went debt-free, and built a hay business that has kept some of the same customers for forty years. Today Dunlea Farms runs about 2,500 acres — roughly 600 of it hay, the rest IP soybeans and grain corn — and Fritz makes the case that hay isn't the crop you grow when grain doesn't work. It's the crop that makes the grain work.

"If you grow corn, soybeans and wheat, you're on a three-wheeler. If you put hay in the rotation, you're on a four-wheeler."

WHAT WE COVER • Why the hay market moves independently of the Chicago Board — and what that does for farm-level risk
• The real cost of a mistake: five bushels in grain, versus the whole crop in hay
• Getting a second job out of the same iron — planting tractors that mow all summer, tillage tractors that bale
• How a grain farmer can get hay into the rotation without buying a single piece of hay equipment
• Drilling Timothy in the fall and double-cropping soybeans into it the next June
• What it actually takes to go all-in: roughly 500 acres, good sheds, and a baler you didn't buy used
• Local, regional and international hay markets — and choosing which one you're building for
• Why 40-year customer relationships are the asset, not the equipment