Canadá: Farm pleads guilty to crop rotation charge

D.S. Ellis Inc. was originally charged with one count of breaching the P.E.I. Crop Rotation Act and one count under the Environmental Protection Act, though the Crown dropped the latter charge after the guilty plea.The O’Leary-based farm has been ordered to pay a fine of $8,300, plus a $75 victims surcharge. It has six months to pay.The charges stem from July 29, 2013, and a fish kill in the Mill River.During the investigation, conservation officers noted a nearby potato field of concern, about 9.3 hectares in the community of Howlan, and eventually found that the leaser, D.S. Ellis Inc., had planted the same crop there in 2011 and 2013. The P.E.I. Crop Rotation Act states that cash crops must be on a three-year rotation and the same crop cannot be planted in the same field, larger than one hectare, within those three years.In court Tuesday, defence council Adam Hood noted that this is a first offence for his client and that he’d like to take responsibility and move on.Hood also highlighted some of the farm’s past efforts to be good environmental stewards.He also said that D.S. Ellis had originally intended to plant soybeans in the field in question, but weather conditions that spring made this impossible, which led to the decision to plant potatoes again.