The National Farmers Union (NFU) is calling for an independent audit of organic-farmed plots at the Swift Current, Sask. research station and restoration of the land to organic standards.
The government abandoned the organic-farmed area and planted wheat this year.
The NFU said when the cuts were announced, the government said there would be a careful, 12-month wind-down period to permit the completion of research in progress, transfer of assets and preservation of data.
But the destruction of the organic research project lands at Swift Current is a betrayal of those assurances, and deeply disrespectful of Parliament, as it pre-empts the government’s official response to the Agriculture Committee report which has not yet been tabled in Parliament.
Farmers made investments in the organic research yet they had no say in the decisions that interrupted ongoing work, and have made it impossible to go ahead with commitments for planned organic research, the NFU said.
The Organic and Regenerative Agriculture program at Swift Current has supported farmer-led alternative plant breeding and addresses urgent problems of climate adaptation, reduced-input production, disease issues, and others faced by all farmers, organic and conventional alike, the NFU said.
The program held well-attended annual field days to communicate its results to the farming community and other researchers.
The Organic and Regenerative Research program is needed to develop and share critical knowledge for a strong agriculture sector, a prosperous economy and Canada’s future food security, it said.
After an independent audit and restoration of the land to organic farming standards, the NFU wants “a formal commitment to a multi-year, supervised remediation process required to rehabilitate the soil structure, address the disruption of biological integrity, and mitigate the damage caused by the loss and mixing of distinct treatment, crop, and soil histories so that valid organic research can safely resume in the future.”
Why is the Canadian Federation of Agriculture silent?
