The following editorial was published in the Guelph Mercury on May 27, 2010

These days, factory farming is a term used liberally when people talk about agriculture.

Its definition seems to vary depending on who is asked, and I’ve often wondered what it actually brings to mind when people hear it. I talk to people in the farming community all the time, and to them it’s an overused misnomer that activists use to demean and wrongly portray farming and food production.

To find out what non-farmers think I asked the question on Twitter last week, and the answers were quite a bit different. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Wind farming is blowing up controversy in many parts of Ontario these days.

On the one hand, it is being promoted as a green alternative to traditional energy sources that we desperately need to lessen our dependence on less environmentally-friendly supplies we have been relying on to date. It is also credited with bringing good jobs to rural areas struggling with employment issues, keeping people in small communities and maintaining infrastructure. [Read the rest of this entry...]

I’ve already talked about my love for fresh Ontario asparagus in a post a couple of weeks ago…but it’s still in season and I’m still enjoying!

Tonight I combined it with another favourite – Ontario pork – and ended up with a delicious meal. It was surprisingly easy to make and great to grill on the barbecue, which was a must for me in today’s heat. [Read the rest of this entry...]

A few weeks ago I came across an article that talked about Breakfast Pizza as the latest trend in chic breakfast eating. This seems like a great idea to me – I love pizza and I love breakfast, so I figure you can’t go wrong by bringing these two life staples together!
[Read the rest of this entry...]

My husband and I went to the movies on Friday night – and during the ever longer pre-movie showcase of commercials and ads, I was quite pleasantly surprised to see one featuring the Holland Marsh and Ontario farmer Jason Verkaik.

Verkaik owns Carron Farms near Bradford, where he grows a wide variety of vegetables, although specializes in carrots and onions. It was Carron Farms that hosted the Eastern Canada Farm Writers Association for their annual meeting last month, and where we had the chance to learn a bit more about the Marsh, a wonderfully fertile area only 40 minutes north from down town Toronto.
[Read the rest of this entry...]

To me, the thought of lavender always brings images of the south of France to mind – and a lovely vacation I spent there with my Mom in the late 1990s.

It’s time for me to change my thinking, though, because lavender is set to have a bigger presence as a homegrown Ontario crop as well.

Ontario farmers recently formed the Ontario Lavender Association and are excited about the potential of this crop as an exciting addition to agri-tourism in our province, says a recent story in The Grower. [Read the rest of this entry...]

It seems even birds are weighing in on the debate over the nutritional benefits of organic food.

A newly released study by Newcastle University in the UK showed that wild garden birds preferred the more protein rich regular bird seed over that which was organically grown. Lead researcher Dr. Alisa McKenzie says this is because protein is a key part of the diet of birds and mammals and they have to make sure they get enough of it to survive the winter.

Research results were published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture – you can read more about the study and its findings here.