Ensuring a Sustainable, Enduring Agriculture

During the farm crisis of the 1980s we began to better understand the inherent faults of an industrialized food system. Despite large gains in productivity, efficiency, and economies of size, thousands of farms were in foreclosure. Many farmers were overly extended in debt. Others were in trouble because of a combination of factors such as drought, low crop prices, high input prices, and the lack of competition in the marketplace. The end result was the loss of thousands of farmers and a subsequent decline in many rural communities.At the same time, a new vision of an enduring agriculture emerged. It was called sustainable agriculture. This new paradigm became attractive because it focused on solutions to the problems of the day. Sustainable agriculture offered hope to farmers that were willing to differentiate their product and add value to it, deal with ecological costs by using sustainable best management practices, and work to create equity in food system employment. Forming new links with consumers is enabling farmers to set their prices, and consumers are willing to pay to know more about their food.

Download Full-text

Aggregate and Agriculture: Cultivating Neighbourly Relations, Stories from Across Ontario

Rural Review: Ontario Rural Planning, Development, and Policy ◽

10.21083/ruralreview.v5i1.6612 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Jeff Reichheld ◽

Emily Hehl ◽

Regan Zink

Keyword(s):

Rural Communities ◽

Best Management Practices ◽

Management Practices ◽

Road Traffic ◽

Local Level ◽

Land Use Impacts ◽

Best Management ◽

The Social ◽

Close Proximity ◽

Depth Interviews

Aggregate extraction and agriculture are prominent land uses in rural southern Ontario, and both industries are vital contributors to the provincial economy. However, these industries compete for the same land base and their operations have the potential to negatively impact the other. There is currently little research into this relationship, particularly at the site or neighbour scale. This project, in its third year, is designed to address this gap and to provide best management practices to both agricultural and aggregate operators, as well as local and provincial governments, about how these industries can better work together. While research has been conducted regarding the social impacts of aggregate extraction on rural residents, little is known regarding the social, economic, environmental and land use impacts on farms operating in close proximity to aggregate extraction activity. The aggregate industry is widely believed to cause a variety of undesirable impacts, including noise, dust, road traffic, extended hours of operation, as well as a loss of water quantity and quality. The development of best management practices is important to help mitigate these potential impacts, both at the local level and for rural communities at large. This presentation provides a summary of research to date as well a preliminary analysis of more than 150 farm surveys collected over the last year. Next steps include further consultation with aggregate operators and more in-depth interviews with key informants from both industries.

Download Full-text

Finite Difference Method to Design Sustainable Infiltration Based Stormwater Management System

10.20944/preprints201902.0024.v1 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Thewodros K. Geberemariam

Keyword(s):

Best Management Practices ◽

Management Practices ◽

New Paradigm ◽

Surface Hydrology ◽

Subsurface Hydrology ◽

Best Management ◽

Native Soil ◽

Soil Constraints ◽

Current Design ◽

Receiving Waters

Infiltration based stormwater best management practices bring considerable economic, social and ecological benefits. Controlling stormwater quantity and quality are primarily important to prevent urban flooding and minimizing loads of pollutants to the receiving waters. However, there have been growing concerns about how the traditional design approach contributes to the failure of infiltration based BMP’s that have caused flooding, ponding, prolonged movement of surface water, and frequent clogging, etc. Many of these problems were due to the fact that the current design approaches of stormwater BMP’s only focus on surface hydrology and give little or no attention to the underline subsoil permeability rate and other constraints during the design and sizing process. As a result, we are exhibiting many newly constructed infiltration based BMP’s are failing to function well. This paper presents and demonstrates a new paradigm shift in designing infiltration-based stormwater BMP’s by combining subsurface hydrology and undelaying native soil constraints to establish acceptable criteria for sizing infiltration based BMPs.

Download Full-text