GFM Network News

More News →

Tag Archives organic farming

Vegetable producers Francois Handfield and Veronique Bouchard with their children: Philomène, eight, and Éméric, 10.
Crops, Features, Fruit/Vegetables

Canada’s OYF: Quebec nominees

Francois Handfield and Veronique Bouchard embrace organic farming


By
They were two non-farmers who started out with $500, a wheelbarrow and a dream. Less than 10 years later, Francois Handfield and Veronique Bouchard have a thriving organic market garden, community shared agriculture business supplying produce to about 4,000 people, they employ up to 20 seasonal workers, and gross about $800,000 annually. A lot of […] Read more
Derek and Tannis Axten with their children Kate, 13, and Brock, 11, know if they look after the soil it will produce.
Crops, Features

Canada’s OYF: Nominees from Saskatchewan

Derek and Tannis Axten focus on encouraging soil biology

By
Daring to be different may enrich your spirit, but it can also leave you cash poor. If you’re Derek and Tannis Axten, however, you wind up having your fungicide-free cake and eating it too. While the 2017 Outstanding Young Farmer (OYF) Award winners for Saskatchewan began their farming career on a well-trodden path, the route […] Read more
Organic wheat and fusarium head blight
Cereals, Crops

Organic wheat and fusarium head blight

By
There have been recent farm press talks about the lack of fusarium head blight and associated vomi problems in organic wheat. Organic farmers do not spray with fungicides so how can that be? Some experts say that in a fusarium area and year there is no way to grow wheat without spraying with a fungicide. […] Read more
Lentils
Crops, Features

Should you be planting green manure?

Researchers see planting and terminating ‘green manure’ as an alternative to summerfallow

By
Researchers at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada as well as the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture have published two recent studies about the effects of green manure on farmland in the Prairies. In one study specifically, the researchers looked at using green manure as an alternative to summerfallowing. Green manure “is a crop that is specifically planted in order to be terminated, […] Read more
Crop diversity, rotational diversity and, if possible, getting animals on the land, are the ways to start building soil health.
Crops, Features

Cover crops for better soil health

Cover crops can help build the “livestock” that lives in the soil and improves productivity

By
It appears that the idea of farmers improving the soil is starting to take hold. The Western Canadian Soil Health Conference was held in Edmonton, Alberta, the first part of December 2015. Nora Paulovich and Tom Fromme, co-chairs on the organizing committee, did a wonderful job pulling speakers together and organizing it. It started at […] Read more
After he harvested winter triticale in 2015, Garry Richards was able to graze cattle in the re-growing cover crop vegetation. This picture was taken on November 2.
Crops, Features

Holistic farming in practice

This Saskatchewan farmer has changed his rotations to work with nature

By
When Garry Richards left his job as a pharmacist and brought his wife home to his family farm near Bangor, Sask., in the late ’90s, he had one main goal. “We wanted to make the farm work, so that we didn’t have to subsidize it from off-farm jobs in the long term.” He didn’t expect it […] Read more
Crops, Features, Livestock

What is holistic management?

Are cover crops on the rise?

By
Holistic management is a framework for making decisions by looking at your entire environment, including your soil and the living organisms in it, how you’re capturing rainfall and energy from the sun and the diversity of the entire biological community. It also includes taking into account the environmental, economic and social consequences of the decisions […] Read more
Agricultural sustainability and feeding the world
Columns, Crops

Agricultural sustainability and feeding the world

Sustainability, organic farming, and feeding the world: not as simple as they sound

By
Sustainability is a major ag buzzword today, mostly peddled by folks with little concept of what a farm is. It is being used in both crop and animal production but I will just talk about crops. To get on the “sustainable” list to market certain crops I see very strange requirements. You must not push […] Read more
organic wheat
Features

Musing on going organic

An email from a long-time organic farmer pushes Toban Dyck to wonder if he should try it too

By
The scene ends in horror. No matter how many times I replay. Telling the farming community and anyone else who would listen that “I, Toban Dyck, am going organic” is like saying, “thanks for letting me spend a couple years on the family farm; now I’m going to plunge it into bankruptcy,” while wearing a […] Read more

AgCanadaTV

AGCanadaTV: In case you missed it; your national ag news recap for Sept. 5, 2025

Sponsored By:
More Videos →

Cyber-Savvy Farmer

Glacier Farmmedia Podcast

Latest Market News

More Market News →