March 1, 2019
In honour of International Women’s Day, a look at changing gender roles and the shift from farmer’s wife or farmer’s daughter to straight-up farmer, like Nancy Sanderson of Hope River Farm Farming in Canada is evolving to have more female presence, according to the 2016 Census of Agriculture. Yet, through our history women have always played important roles in agriculture:…
June 1, 2018
What does ‘Certified Organic’ mean? On PEI, ‘certified organic’ means food grown on a farm according to specific organic practices as defined by the Canadian Organic Standards and regulated nationally by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). Each farm is inspected annually by a qualified third party inspector and each inspected farm is issued a certificate. General principles of organic…
March 31, 2018
In case you missed it Barnyard Organics from Freetown PEI, was awarded the Soil Conservationists of the Year by the PEI Soil & Crop Improvement Association. They became the first organic farm to achieve this recognition. Barnyard Organics grows and sells organic feed mixes and organic grains as well as raise poultry and offer a CSA for eggs and poultry.…
October 1, 2017
Sally Bernard explains why public discourse and panels on food policy and food sustainability need primary producers’ voices “Food policy is the area of public policy concerning how food is produced, processed, distributed, and purchased. Food policies are designed to influence the operation of the food and agriculture system.” (Source: Wikipedia) Food policy—it likely sounds vaguely interesting to most, dead…
July 1, 2017
Investigating the real story behind Charlottetown food bank’s rejection of Barnyard Organics’ donated eggs When Mark Bernard of Barnyard Organics in Freetown packed up his truck in early May with 40 dozen organic eggs to deliver to the Upper Room Food Bank in Charlottetown, he was expecting to return home with an empty truck, but that didn’t happen. The food…