When Terry and Monique left the opera to pursue their true passion – ecological farming – their story of community and resilience took center stage. We follow their young family and a diverse group of farmers and scientists as they blend age old traditions with cutting edge science to develop improved methods for growing food ecologically and in a changing climate. A hopeful story and Canadian perspective on a global social movement that regenerates the land, farming and communities.
Single Test
Transcript
I think we have this right to clean air, growing our own food, seeds, and water. Those are such basic human rights to me. Just time for eaters, which means every citizen could throw their weight behind farmer’s rights, behind farmer’s right to breed, behind the seed’s right to evolve.
The trick is that farmers need access to this diversity, and that’s what plant breeding does. We don’t need to have agriculture just controlled by a few. Two issues that are going to be really big issues in the coming decades, and one is adaptability, and the other is versatility.
The Canadian prairies are actually going to warm up faster than the global average. We don’t mitigate greenhouse gases. We don’t get our carbon emissions in check. The types of crops that might be grown here will have to change. Water management will have to change, and this is a huge pressure on these farm systems.
We haven’t seen the Armageddon that climate change is likely to bring, and the trick is, can we get ourselves to get farming ready for that future?
Overall, I would rather characterize farming as a constant play between hope and despair. Hey, piggies, you have to be able to step away from it for a minute and see that it has shown you something that can give you hope.
When I see farmers on the landscape, whoever they are, wherever they come from, whatever practice they are employing, they are heroes to me. Seeding is an amazing and beautifully hopeful thing to do.