For OFA, as a corporation representing the agricultural sector, you will need to have stable, fact-based info that displays the present realities of farmers and rural communities.
The next column was written and submitted by Crispin Colvin, Director of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture:
For an advocacy group, knowledgeable choice making is crucial and infrequently an individual's credibility will depend on the info and figures that help their place.
For the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), as a corporation representing the agricultural sector, you will need to have stable, fact-based info that displays the present realities of farmers and rural communities. On the identical time, this have to be balanced with a robust imaginative and prescient for the form of future we wish for agriculture and for Ontarians.
That’s the reason we help and put money into analysis into the processes and points that play a key function in growing the coverage positions we take to authorities and different stakeholders on behalf of our members.
This work is commonly accomplished behind the scenes in help of our extra public actions, so it's additionally essential that we share it with our members throughout the province, so they’re conscious of what their agricultural group is doing on their behalf.
For OFA, our annual Analysis Replace is a chance for our members to dig just a little deeper into the matters which can be a part of our advocacy agenda, in addition to to study extra about matters, whether or not these which can be promising or these which were in progress for a while.
This is not going to solely assist inform decision-making in your personal communities and agricultural companies, however may also help your advocacy efforts on the native stage. Lots of the OFA regional and county federations meet often with their elected representatives from provincial and federal governments, in addition to members of their municipal governments, concerning the points that matter of their areas.
This 12 months, our Analysis Replace was held each on-line and dwell in Orangeville together with the primary OFA Federation Discussion board. Under are some highlights of the matters coated that day:
Wholesome soils for sustainable farms: The Greenbelt Basis and the Soil Well being Institute are supporting a four-year mission to pattern soils within the Golden Horseshoe. The objective is to judge and monitor soil well being on three several types of land: websites with frequent or intense tillage, websites with low tillage and use of canopy crops, and websites similar to hay fields, fences, pastures, orchards or land in fallow lands which can be hardly ever used. disturbed.
Every farm participant receives a customized report displaying how their fields rating in comparison with others together with short- and long-term finest practices to strive, in addition to any out there cost-sharing alternatives. In 2024, participation is open to farmers with a grain and oilseed crop rotation in York, Durham and Niagara areas.
Farmers and fertilizers: Fertilizer is a elementary useful resource for farmers to supply wholesome and plentiful crops. It has additionally come below scrutiny for its environmental impacts when vitamins will not be utilized by crops however misplaced into the air or waterways. The 4R Nutrient Stewardship program is a helpful instrument to help farmers with nutrient administration planning for crop manufacturing in order that additionally they cut back nutrient loss.
By making use of the suitable supply of vitamins in a type that crops can use, on the proper dose that crops want, and on the proper time of 12 months in the suitable place the place crops can finest entry them, farmers can decrease impacts. to the surroundings and on the identical time preserve crop yields and high quality.
PFAS: Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a big class of chemical compounds which can be broadly utilized in shopper, business, and industrial merchandise, and are discovered at low ranges in individuals, animals, water, air, fish, and soil around the globe. Though there are nonetheless many unknowns, efforts are underway in Europe and america to ban the usage of all PFAS, no matter their composition, traits or impression.
For farmers and municipalities, for instance, this could have an effect on the usage of biosolid pellets as a nutrient supply on agricultural land. Ontario analysis has to date proven that the soil well being advantages from making use of biosolids, that are a byproduct of human waste, outweigh the dangers from the potential addition of PFAS to soil. And if biosolids can’t be used as fertilizer, the present options are incineration or landfilling, which additionally pose an environmental danger. Extra analysis is being accomplished to raised perceive this difficulty and what it means for farmers, customers and the soil.