Farmer’s Blog

With no knowledge about food production prior to these experiences, my learning curve was exponential. I became familiar with field crops, beef, dairy, goat, sheep, pig, broiler, egg, honey, vegetable, and fruit production. By engaging in a diversity of production methods, I observed the impact these methods had on the plants and animals being produced. In general, I saw that when farmers prioritized soil biology, as opposed to short term yield increases through the use of synthetic chemicals, they created healthier farming systems, healthier plants, healthier animals, and more successful farms – in terms of a triple bottom line.

When the Growing Forward 2 (GF2) program came out in 2013, we started looking into what things they would approve for funding, to see if we could make any improvements to the farm. One of the key themes of GF2 was to ‘be proactive, increase productivity and advance sustainability.’ With fluctuating electricity rates and a deep concern for what the future prices would become, we did some research and turned our eye to solar panels.

On all of the eroded grain land, we need livestock back out there, recycling nutrients back into the soil. That’s how nature had it planned. In any environment where there’s a dormant season, nature put a ruminant animal. A ruminant is a cow, a deer, a sheep, an elk, a goat, or an elephant. Ruminants have four stomachs and they basically decompose plant material with microorganisms and bacteria in the gut. If you have a dormant season in an environment, for example, winter in North America, the bugs die off and there’s nothing there to decompose the plant material that’s left over. Nature brings in a ruminant animal where the bugs have a place to work – except here, they’re working inside the stomach of the cow. In a rainforest environment, there’s no need for a ruminant because the material falls to the ground, decomposers can work in the soil all year round. But here, where we have a dormant season, we need ruminants.

Our farms must not only feed themselves, but the community surrounding them. Economies shrinking to a bioregional scale may just be the richest thing our communities can endeavour in. We can rejuvenate our rural communities, providing pride and purpose in meaningful work through growing grass roots and grassroots movements where young people see that greener pastures can be found right outside the farmhouse door. Let us know our neighbours, nourish one another, and build the communities we really want to live within.

Most of our efforts to date have focused on increasing organic matter content in the soil. Organic matter (OM) is critical to the soil ecosystem and the health of our land, binds atmospheric carbon, feeds bacterial/fungal soil networks, and retains water. OM also loosens the soil making root penetration easier, and crop health depends on deep roots in our dry boom-or-bust rainfall patterns. Since we practice a beyond organic farming methodology OM is huge for our farm.