Sustainable food and crop production have become hot topics over the past decade and Western Canadian farmers have taken notice.
Many have started improving and enhancing their crop production practices with new technologies slanted towards production optimization rather than production maximization, with a view towards long-term sustainability. This is especially important to those who operate family farms that will be passed on to future generations.
Sustainability means different things to different people, but there are three key interconnected areas that the new breed of farmer understands and agrees with: financial sustainability, environmental sustainability and social sustainability.
Financial sustainability is of utmost importance, but it is also intimately connected to environmental and social sustainability. Western Canadian farmers want to ensure their operations are sustainable well into the future while also being good stewards of the land. They are very aware of the impact their production practices are having on the environment, and they also understand the connection to social sustainability.
Western Canadian farmers have a revered reputation as the finest quality food producers in the world. They care about the environment and they have a healthy respect for the people who are buying the food created from their production. They understand that more and more people are demanding food that is produced using environmentally sustainable practices; that people want to know how their food is produced and what’s in it; and that people read labels and buy accordingly.
The concepts of environmental and social sustainability with regards to food production have been embraced by the countries, corporations and niche food producers that are buying Canadian grain and produce. Not only are they asking for high levels of consistency and quality from Western Canadian farmers, they are also improving their own sustainability practices.
They know what their customers want: high quality clean food produced using environmentally and socially sustainable practices. They also understand the maze of connections between farmers and consumers, and the economic trickledown effect, which will only become clearer and more substantial over time.
New technologies and management practices are slanted towards production optimization rather than production maximization — with long-term sustainability in mind – and include variable rate fertilizer application, 4R Nutrient Stewardship, field scouting, UAV mapping and soil sampling, among numerous other agronomic consulting options that take an in-depth look at crop nutrition, soil health, nutrient management and cost/benefit analysis.
Sustainable food production in the future will utilize all the above technologies and will continue to improve with additional insights provided by the world-class crop production research being conducted at Western Canadian universities.
The focus will be on optimizing crop production while at the same ensuring long-term financial sustainability, preserving the land and the environment, and being socially responsible to the end consumer — for all the right reasons.
Western Canadian farmers will be leading the way.