Blood Tribe Agri-Business Trust (BTAT)

BTAP is located on the Blood Indian Reserve in Southern Alberta, Canada. In April 2019, the Chief and Council of the Blood Tribe formed the Blood Tribe Agri-Business Trust that owns and operates BTAP (1991) and Aohkii (2018) Ltd. The shares of which is the settled property in accordance of the business trust agreement. The Trust is comprised of the following:

  • AOHKII (2018) LTD.
  • Kainai Forage Limited Partnership

Trustees

Irrigation Systems

The Blood Tribe Agricultural Project (BTAP) irrigation system was developed in collaboration with Blood Tribe Chief and Council members and professional engineers and technicians. BTAP was developed in collaboration with the Federal and Provincial Government, known as the Tri-Partite Agreement. It is unique as its water delivery system runs through the Blood Reserve. It incorporates 33 km of open canals and contains a 6,000 cu/dam capacity reservoir. Water diverted from the St. Mary-Belly Diversion Canal is then distributed to productions lands by an underground pipeline distribution “closed system” in which the water does not flow back into the river basin.

The water delivery system operates from late March through October. The canals and reservoir are filled in early May, the gravity pipelines are charged and the pivots are prepared for the crop season. Water application begins in early May and operators respond to water requests and maintenance issues through Zendesk. Zendesk is a ticket system that gives real time updates to the growers and our operators. This allows staff to be more efficient and accountable when dealing with requests. Water requests are scheduled and our SCADA system gives updates and projections on where water levels are on the canal to ensure we have sufficient flow. FieldNET is another tool that allows staff to operate the pivots from their hand held device. Maintenance work is done during the winter months with seasonal services during the operating season.

Distribution Layout

Site Management

FieldNET Hardware

  • Keeps track of the entire system, pivot by pivot
  • Receive updates on live status and position of each pivot
  • Receive daily, weekly and monthly water usage reports
  • Remotely control pivots from office
  • Farmers can view the status of their pivots but are not allowed access to remote control
  • 18 Mataki pivots are hooked up with FieldNET