Preserve and Build: Full-Circle Soil Conservation

by Natalie Noble

Farming Smarter congratulates Kevin Auch with the 2025 Orville Yanke Award

Kevin Auch, Carmangay, Alta. received the Farming Smarter Orville Yanke Award for 2025. It’s a full-circle moment for this soil conservationist who frequently shares his perspective for the greater good of the farming community.

“I knew Orville personally and visited his farm when he farmed. I saw his equipment and what he did back when I started farming,” said Auch. “Orville was one of these guys I looked up to and considered a mentor at our Southern Alberta Conservation Association (SACA) board meetings. Some of these innovators, including Doug Wright and Richard Fritzler, had great influence on my desire to improve our soil’s productivity.”

It's a priority Auch preserves. “It comes right back to the farm gate, what we're selling and how we market our products,” said Auch. “I want to see farmers succeed while remaining sustainable. It's been an honor to be a part of that. As an industry, remaining profitable into the future without sacrificing soil quality is important to me. I've seen the soils on this farm improve dramatically in my lifetime.”

Purchased by his father in 1963, Auch’s operation grew to over 5,000 acres of owned and rented land southwest of Carmangay, Alta. The family’s current annual crop rotation evolved as they discovered what keeps the soil from eroding. Today’s five-year rotation is Yellow peas, canola, durum wheat, flax (or flax/chickpea intercrop), then spring wheat.

At times, Auch includes barley and/or winter wheat according to weather and market conditions.

“There are agronomic reasons to be in a longer rotation because you allow your herbicides and other pesticides to have greater efficacy when you change those groups,” said Auch. “With some of the resistances we see to our tools on the farm to combat weeds and other pests, it's becoming increasingly important.”

Auch loves sharing these findings. “I’ve always had a desire to help the farming community,” he said. “My father understood well the negative effects [wind erosion] had on our soil quality and productivity. As I grew up, he instilled in me a desire and practiced farming methods available at the time to preserve and improve soil quality.”

Conservation practices developed out of a necessity to stop wind erosion and negate the soil degradation plaguing southern Alberta farmers since the settler days, Auch said. That includes innovations such as the Noble blade allowing more crop residue to remain on top of the soil and growing high residue crops like fall rye, effective in stabilizing soil from further erosion.

“Leapfrogging ahead to no-till and longer crop rotations, we've seen marked improvement in soil quality and consequently, soil productivity,” said Auch, adding he can literally see increased health in his soil conditions. “Today, there's so much life and activity in our soils that we don't need to till. In fact, on my dry land, I think I'm going to throw another cereal in there to get more residue on the surface.”

Since starting out with SACA, Auch served on research committees and member organizations including the Western Grains Research Foundation, Alberta Pulse Growers, Cereals Canada, Alberta Wheat Commission and more, seeking improvement practices and technologies that support growers to remain productive and profitable.

“The practices that Orville pioneered, we’ve worked to build upon on our farm,” said Auch. “The future of agriculture depends on preserving some of the things we've learned but also adapting to future challenges.”