Encyclopedia of the Great Plains

PRAIRIE FARM REHABILITATION ADMINISTRATION

The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA) is a branch of the Canadian government's Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food. It was established in 1935 to secure the rehabilitation of the drought and soildrifting areas in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta and to develop and promote within these areas systems of farm practice, tree culture, water supply, land utilization, and land settlement that would afford better economic security to the agricultural population.

Over the years, PFRA'S mandate evolved along with the agricultural sector. It now works in all agricultural regions of the three Prairie Provinces and the Peace River region of British Columbia, offering its services through its headquarters in Regina, Saskatchewan, and through a network of twenty-two district and five regional offices, a shelterbelt center, eighty-seven community pastures, and two irrigation crop diversification centers.

PFRA'S services for resource care (soil and water) and rural development include technical expertise on land and water resource management, land-use planning, crop diversification, irrigation development, environmental analysis, shelterbelt and wildlife habitat plantings, and water quality analysis. It offers technical and financial assistance to develop water supplies (dugouts, wells, dams, and water pipelines) and improve or protect the quality of surface and groundwater resources. It delivers water from Canada-owned and -operated reservoirs to irrigation projects and numerous communities in southwestern Saskatchewan. It provides tree and shrub seedlings for farmyard, field, and wildlife habitat plantings. And it oversees the management and operation of eighty-seven community pastures as well as the management of federal-provincial agreements, programs, and projects related to soil and water resource care and rural growth.

See also WATER: Bow River Irrigation Project.

Bill King Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration Regina, Saskatchewan

Gray, James H. Men against the Desert. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1967.