Cypress County draws up land productivity map

By ANNA SMITH Local Journalism Initiative on February 22, 2024.

Cypress County, as part of its ongoing discussions on renewable energy and related projects, has created the Agricultural Land Resource Atlas to better inform decisions moving forward.

The atlas is designed to showcase the productivity of land within the county, particularly land that could potentially host a renewable project in the future. Areas such as Crown or leased lands are excluded for this purpose.

Cypress County’s Municipal Development Plan is stated to work to prevent fragmentation of prime agricultural lands.

It was noted the atlas could be used from both an irrigation agricultural or renewables perspective to seek out new growth opportunities, which could potentially lead to conversations in the future, but the maps can be used to help keep the potential agricultural income of the land in mind when seeking space for projects.

The classification on the map was based off of the 1984 Alberta Farmland Manual, using digitized fields for assessment purposes.