FoodTrust - Connections

Denise Deveau has a great story about sustainable farming on the CBC News website called Farm to Fork.

She talks about the confusion between sustainability and organic and what some restaurateurs are doing to promote sustainable agriculture.

Scott

Potatoes are, and have almost always been, cheap. Cheap, that is, for consumers to purchase. They are, however, not cheap for farmers to grow.

Low financial returns means that farmers are selling crops for less than what it costs for them to be grown. Small farms are declaring bankruptcy at an alarming rate all over North America because they are not receiving fair value for the crops they grow.

One of FoodTrust’s goals is to help farms to become sustainable. There are three key “pillars” to sustainability – environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and economic growth. Increased financial returns to farmers can help with all three.

John Ikerd has many excellent papers on his web site dealing with sustainability and agriculture.

Scott

Last time I talked about some of the management practices Lori uses to improve soil and reduce risk to the environment. This time I’ll tell you about some real earth changing projects.

Lori’s family has worked to decrease the severity of their sloped land (yes, P.E.I. is not flat). They created terraces on many fields with berms and grassed waterways between fields to slow down and direct the flow of water. Terraces divide large fields into several smaller fields with less slope.

The family also created a large pond in conjunction with Ducks Unlimited. This pond and surrounding area is teaming with wildlife and in the spring and fall is temporary home to hundreds of ducks and geese.

To add to the diversity of activities on their farm the family has an active Forest Management plan. Over the years they have thinned young tree stands and harvested mature trees. Harvested areas have been replanted with new trees to maintain the ecological balance.

That’s part of the physical side of environmental management. Next I’ll talk about the chemical side and what Lori is doing to decrease or eliminate certain chemicals from her farm.

Scott