Langbank ranchers receive Environmental Stewardship Award
June 22, 2026, 11:10 am
Donnie Matichuk
The Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association has awarded Ralph and Linda Corcoran of Langbank with the 2026 Environmental Stewardship Award.
The award was presented to the Corcorans at the SSGA’s 113th AGM banquet on June 9 in Swift Current. The two were recognized for their responsible land management, environmental stewardship, and sustainable ranching practices.
“Linda and I took a holistic management course to start with, and it taught us that if the soil gets healthy, everything gets healthy. Your profits, your people, and your cattle, and everything grows and becomes better. Taking a holistic approach makes everything in your life simpler. Your workload gets simpler, and you’ve got time to look after your people,” Ralph said.
“The award for Environmental Stewardship is for farmers and ranchers that do their best to keep the environment healthy. It’s for keeping your land, your people, your animals—everything—healthy and happy.”
Corcoran talked about how having the knowledge of holistic management made them educators, and gave them a responsibility to teach others how they can be sustainable on their own ranch.
“When we took the holistic management course, we became educators to let everybody know about land management and how it can improve a ranch. Becoming educators is something we really wanted to do, we wanted to tell everybody about how this holistic approach works.”
He says that small changes to how a rancher manages their land and animals can make a big difference in their business.
“Some of the things we’ve done are little things. We’ve stopped overgrazing, we’ve done a lot of high herd stock densities, and we let the grass be grazed, but then give it a rest and move the cattle. We’ve more than doubled our cow herd. The way to stay environmentally healthy when you do that is to buy twice as much land, or rent twice as much land. That’s all expensive, but by just following the holistic management practices principle, you can double your herd and it doesn’t cost you any more. All of a sudden your profits double.”
Corcoran said that studies of their land have shown that the holistic management approach has helped bring carbon back into the soil.
“We’ve had carbon studies done on the ranch for over 13 years now, a guy comes from the U.S. every three years and takes another test of the same spot. Our carbon has increased every time he does it. With a test like that, if the carbon goes down, we can ask ourselves what we might be doing wrong. But the soil is getting healthier, and we’re asking ourselves what we’re doing right.”
He noted that the two were nominated by friends and neighbors from the area, and that it meant the world to them.
“Our neighbors were the ones that nominated us. We’ve tried to teach as many people as we can about holistic management, and now they’re doing things holistically as well.
”We just sold our ranch to our grandson and his partner, so we’re really happy to be able to give the next generation the opportunity to continue working with the land and the animals. Lots of young people in the area would like to get into farming or running their own farm, and they don’t get that opportunity much anymore because of the price of land. It feels great that we can give young people that opportunity.”
Corcoran says that being able to teach and pass on his knowledge to others is something he is very proud of.
“I love when people come to the ranch and I can show them some of the things we do holistically, because hopefully they can do that on their land too. Anybody can do it, it’s just committing to it. It feels great to be able to share our knowledge with other people.”
The Corcorans will soon go to the national awards event, organized by the Canadian Cattle Association.
“We’re heading to Winnipeg in August to be in the nationals. It’s going to be neat to meet all the other applicants and recipients. Its going to be really cool because the national winners are going to come out of that room.”
He said that the two are very appreciative of those who nominated them, and that environment’s wellbeing is something that everyone can contribute to.
“It’s a really good feeling, because we take a little time to educate other people, and put on tours of our place to share what we do. We’re just over the moon. When we got the phone call to tell us about the award, we couldn’t believe it. I think that everyone that nominated us should be nominated too, because they all do good things as well. We’re super happy to be nominated.”
