The Northern Ontario Farm Innovation Alliance hosted it’s fourth annual Northern Ontario Ag Conference (NOAC) on February 17th and 18th, 2022. The conference was held virtually and had a range of presentation topics from farmers and researchers across the north. All of the presentations were recorded and are available online at the Northern Ontario Farm Innovation Alliance YouTube channel.
One of the highlights of the conference was a presentation from Dr. Amanda Diochon of Lakehead University. The research project that Dr. Diochon presented on is entitled Which Approach Makes the Most Cents? Evaluating the Effect of Land Conversion Practices on Soil Health and Yields of Barley and Oats. Soil organic carbon is an important indicator of soil health, and in this project Dr. Diochon is assessing how conventional land clearing compares to mulching in terms of soil organic carbon. In conventional land clearing, the trees and above ground growth is largely removed from the field, whereas in mulching it is ground up and mixed into the soil itself. The idea is that the organic matter that is returned to the soil will increase the soil organic carbon levels and improve the health and yield of any crops grown in that field.
Dr. Diochon’s findings so far suggest that it takes about ten years for the wood chips and other organic matter to break down and begin to show up in the soil. Before ten years, conventionally cleared land has higher soil organic matter levels, but after ten years the mulched sites begin to overtake the conventionally cleared sites and some of the sites even begin to match the organic matter levels of uncleared forest land. To conclude her presentation, Dr Diochon put out a call for any farmers who have cleared land either conventionally or with mulching in the past ten years. She’s putting together a new project and would like to come to your farm and conduct soil sampling to continue gauging the effects of land conversion methods. Her email is adiochon@lakeheadu.ca.
Steph Vanthof, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture Members Service Representative for Northeastern Ontario presented at the conference about the NOFIA and OFA pilot project looking at recycling agricultural plastic. Across the past two years, wooden compactors have been spread across northern Ontario, and participating farmers have been compacting bales of plastic. There are 25 compactors in the north and another 5 in eastern Ontario. Many of these are located on-farm, while some are mobile and shared between a farm organization, where it’ll be moved from farm to farm as a farmer accumulates enough plastic to compact into a bale. One compactor is located at the public works yard in the Township of Chisholm and has been having days where farmers can bring their plastic to the yard and have it compacted.
Steph estimates that there are about 100 tonnes of mixed plastic bales, and 50 tonnes of single stream plastic bales, meaning that a bale is composed of one type of plastic, in this case mostly bale wrap.
The pilot project has been hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic, as it reduced the number of events and field days that were intended to be used to demonstrate how the compactors worked. The most significant challenge that COVID-19 has posed to the pilot is the closure of the end user. The pilot had established a plan to send the bales to a plastic recycler, but due to the pandemic that company recently shut down. Other alternatives are being identified, and in the meantime project coordinators are arranging with participating farmers to collect the bales and bring them to a central storage location, from where they will be shipped to whichever recycler is selected. If you’re in the pilot and haven’t been contacted, or if you’re not in the pilot but have plastic you’d like to recycle, you can contact Steph at stephanie.vanthof@ofa.on.ca.
Dan Bath, a researcher from the non-profit organization Vineland Research and Innovation Centre presented on a project they are working on in partnership with NOFIA and the Rural Agri Innovation Network. Based on the increased demand for local food across northern Ontario, this project is assessing the state of vegetable and fruit farming in the north and will identify opportunities that will allow the horticultural market to grow, and barriers that can reduce production or market access. Vineland will be releasing a survey shortly to gather input from producers, and they will also be conducting conversations with fruit and vegetable growers in the north. Anyone interested in the project is invited to contact Daniel Bath at daniel.bath@vinelandresearch.com.
The conference was concluded with a video tour of Dustin Kunkel’s new dairy barn in Powassan, with a focus on its automated aspects, including a Lely Astronaut robot milker, a Lely feed pushing robot, and an automated manure collection system. The tour, along with all of the other conference presentations, can be found on the Northern Ontario Farm Innovation Alliance YouTube channel.