All around the world, you’ll find farmers who are passionate about restoring their environment through organic and regenerative farming practices. There is a lot of variety in regional approaches to sustainable agriculture, and each of them has something to teach us about Canada’s organic sector.
In 2021, nitrogen fertilizer saw a huge price spike due to a string of severe weather events like Hurricane Ida and the February Texas cold snap. Alongside other supply-chain disruptions, these events have led to global shortages and decade-high consumer prices. Is there a way we can limit our dependance on nitrogen fertilizer?
Regardless of size or location, farms are closely connected to their surrounding environment—through the soil, water systems, insects and wildlife. All organisms within an ecosystem depend on each other, and the healthiest ecosystems contain a wide range of species that interact in diverse and mutually beneficial ways. Agro-biodiversity tries to mimic natural species diversity by increasing the variety of crops and other organisms in a single farming system. It offers farmers many useful tools to improve soil health and reduce reliance on inputs without sacrificing profits. Having more species working together creates more stable farming systems that are resilient against harsh conditions like severe weather, pests and disease.
Although policies and politicians will often attempt to tackle issues like climate change and biodiversity separately, the two problems are deeply intertwined. Climate change and biodiversity loss are two sides of the same crisis and it would be impossible to address one without the other. Agriculture has not traditionally been a champion of biodiversity and has instead been a source of biodiversity loss. However, biodiversity is extremely important, both to agriculture and to humans in general. So is there a balance we can strike between the natural world and agriculture that can allow biodiversity to flourish without getting in the way of our food production?
statement that, while true, is vastly oversimplified. While there is a general consensus that healthy soil is central to sustainable farming, less is known about the practice of using soil organic matter to store carbon as a climate solution. Conversations about the “soil solution” do not always dive into the details of how soil sequesters carbon, leaving room for skepticism about its effectiveness when compared to flashier technological carbon-capture solutions. In this article, we’ll break down how soil absorbs carbon and why it is an amazing natural phenomenon worth getting excited about.
