Canada: Agriculture's future is organic, farmer says

She says it's the only way the agriculture industry in Canada has any chance of survival.

Standing in the four acres of field behind her Grande-Digue home, Rowena Hopkins, a former chemistry teacher, is an organic farmer.

And while Canada has lost 17,550 farms in just five years according to most recent census numbers - a total of 257 in New Brunswick - the numbers go the other way when talking organic.

The number of certified organic farms in the country grew by 1,325 in the same time frame. New Brunswick alone had a 68 per cent increase.

To date, New Brunswick has 68 organic farming operations and the only certified organic grain mills in Atlantic Canada.

Hopkins believes it's not just a dream to think the entire province's food production could eventually turn chemical-free.

"If farming is to survive, the only way for it to survive is by going organic," Hopkins said. "Organics could absolutely feed the world as long as we get away from the giant farm mentality and shipping produce all over the place."

The competitiveness of world market prices and production costs escalated by fuel and pesticide costs have hurt the average farmer.

Farming associations believe the fallout has discouraged future generations from taking over long-standing family operation, pointing as well to the continued slide in the number of farms.

"New farmers are not going into conventional agriculture because there is no money in it and then they don't want to handle the chemicals," Hopkins said. "If they are going into farming, they are favouring organic and they are seeing it as an economic sector that is growing, it's more in demand."

Beth McMahon, executive director of the Sackville-based Atlantic Canada Organic Regional Network, said it's the health benefits and lack of ecological impact on land that is creating increasing interest from consumers.

The organic network is focused on developing a new generation of farmers. It runs an apprenticeship program to help in the creation of more farms.

McMahon predicted 20 per cent growth this year in the organic industry in New Brunswick.

"There is no ceiling here, while the costs of inputs for other farms continue to go up," McMahon said.

"Once more and more conventional farmers start dabbling in organic, we are going to see more and more trying it."

McMahon said, despite the growth, she doesn't picture a completely organic New Brunswick in her lifetime.

While conventional farming is prescribed in its methods, organic farming relies on a continuous hands-on approach to break up pest and disease cycles that cannot be solved by pesticides. The result is a wide variety of crops on small farms, which is labour intensive.

That deters conventional farmers.

"Some individual farmers are going organic in some areas," said Joe Brennan, chairman of Potatoes New Brunswick. "But we don't find it something that is happening in the potato belt, rather something that is happening around the cities where there is more direct marketing,"

Marketing of farmers markets is lacking according to Hopkins. She said an association to link markets in Moncton, Saint John, Fredericton and Dieppe is in the works.

Brennan agreed that the largest barriers to a full-scale turn to organic farming are the small scale of the operations and the need for intensive care over a number of different crops to minimize disease.

If farmers want to be a part of the supermarket supply chain they need large acreages of one product to even be considered as a supplier.

"In the last two years the cost of production has increased about $500 an acre just due to fuel, fertilizer and pesticides," Brennan said of potato farming. "But the important thing to remember is that people don't use these things because they want to.

"They use them because they have to, to get a crop. People are using them as sparingly as they can so they can maintain a crop."

Potato diseases such as blight can spread from one farm to the next if just one area fails to use pesticides.

"I think it just depends on the mindset of the community," Hopkins said, believing the viability of a greater number of small farms serving just the community around them is plausible.

"If the old ways of doing things just die out naturally, it could happen."


Source: telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com

Publication date: 5/11/2009

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