Footprint Business Consulting

Sustainable agriculture can be a broad and sometimes vague term without a universally agreed-upon definition. I like to define sustainability in the broadest sense possible, in that sustainability is the ability to carry out practices indefinitely, without having to eventually halt them because of negative impacts on environment, community, or the processes themselves. Sustainable agriculture thus involves more than just environmentally sound farming practices, but also necessarily encompasses both economic considerations (questions of resource utilization) and human considerations as well.

Why is sustainability important in agriculture?

Unfortunately, the current agricultural production systems in place not only in the U.S. but in many parts of the world are highly unsustainable. Some of the problems with agriculture include the destruction of wild ecosystems, such as the clearing of rainforest and other biomes to make room for farming, nutrient pollution and chemical pollution from agricultural runoff, waterway disruption and aquifer depletion from the use of water for irrigation, and climate destabilization resulting from a combination of factors.

What are best practices, with respect to sustainability, in farming and agriculture?

People often focus on certain simple issues, like organic farming, or the use of specific harmful chemicals, without looking at the broader picture. Even if everyone in the world were to completely stop using all harmful chemicals in agriculture, and only farm organically, there could still be catastrophic environmental implications of farming. Read more…

November at the nursery is a busy time of year. A total contrast to plants that are going dormant and still, resting during the winter months. Bare root season is usually a muddy, cold, wet, windy affair, but the weather has been very mild so far, only having our first real frost this morning and we are almost into December already.

Bare root season for me, clearly shows the difference between nursery and garden centre.

Digging trenches to heel in plants is back braking work. There’s no machinery where I work, everything is done by hand.

Bare root plants are sold without soil around the roots and lifted when the leaves drop, the buds produce protective scales and the plants go into a dormant state over winter. Evergreen plants are usually dug up with a root ball because the plants are in active growth throughout the year, so leaving some soil around the roots is less of a shock when they are lifted. Bareroot plants are cheaper than containerized plants.

There’s a lot and varieties to choose from, and this time of year is certainly the best time for planting, just as long as the ground is workable. Meaning, not frozen or water logged.

The most popular plants bought at this time of the year seem to be hedging plants. Beech, Hornbeam, and native hedges for wildlife are good choices. Fruit trees are often bought at this time of the year also, with many people planting orchards.

Another big seller are the roses, which is a specialty where I work because we bud our own roses and people often return at this time of the year, every year, just to buy them. Budding is a form of propagation, not really carried out by small retail nurseries anymore. Companies usually buy in from the big growers. Read more…