oct 6.2015 revised clearwater farm review

Clearwater Farm, Georgina, Ontario A project of the Ontario Water Centre (OWC)

An Agroecological Systems Design Review

September 23, 2015 ________________________________________________________________________

Report by: Ryan Hayhurst, MEDes NEO, Regenerative Agroecological Systems Consulting

CLEARWATER FARM: AN AGROECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS DESIGN REVIEW 2

About the Author

Ryan has over ten years direct experience working with complex agroecological systems. In addition to his academic record in Environmental Design, sustainable food systems planning, project management and evaluation, his hands-‐in-‐the-‐dirt experience with agroecology included 5 years owning/operating an organic vegetable farm near Collingwood, Ontario, a 2 acre urban market garden collaboration and dozens of other design/implementation/evaluation projects. He currently lives in Guelph, Ontario amongst a productive edible forest garden, young family, good friends and six chickens. Ryan Hayhurst, Principal NEO, Regenerative Agro-‐Ecological Systems Consulting, Est. 2004 Twitter: @NEOrganics Skype: @forest_farmer Linkedin: http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/ryan-‐hayhurst/23/431/a2 'When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.' (John Muir, 1911)

CLEARWATER FARM: AN AGROECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS DESIGN REVIEW

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Executive Summary Clearwater Farm is well positioned to become a multi-‐functional agroecological food and farming hub that responds immediately and sustainably to some of our planet’s most complex problems. Using a regenerative approach to farm design, and laid out in a creative and accessible manner, the Ontario Water Centre’s proposal for Clearwater Farm connects OWCs years of water advocacy work in the Lake Simcoe basin with the potential offered by a unique heritage farm property at a prominent lakeside location developed using leading edge agroecological principles. The basis of Clearwater Farm, which is reflected by the orientation of the design proposal, is very suitably water and this project represents an ideal learning laboratory in which to demonstrate best practices in design and management of water within a working farm landscape. Clearwater Farm is the type of project born both out of hard work and imagination, but also out of necessity. In reviewing the socio-‐ecological, political and economic context of our time in relation to the subject of food systems, this report begins by highlighting research that has helped build growing popular support for the agroecological movement. These various high levels calls for the advancement of agroecological approaches, combined with the success of innovative farmers at the leading edge of agroecological design and local community food systems, aligns Clearwater Farm with a very progressive community of practice where Clearwater and OWC’s considerable experience will no doubt be welcome. Beyond the ‘why’ of agroecology, this report reviews the ‘how’ and lays out in basic terms an analysis of the Clearwater Farm agroecological plan, which responds to the growing global call for the advancement of agroecological agriculture. Backed by both academic science and farmer-‐scholars, the foundation of this plan emphasises a keyline landscape architecture, maximizing soil moisture availability and nurturing healthy soil biology. The design elements proposed as interconnected components of the whole farm system include earthworks, perennial polyculture plantings and integrated animal husbandry. Proposed as a two phase implementation beginning with 8 acres and expanding to an additional 22 acres in five years, this working farm model balances the need for productive crop yields to support operational costs with OWC’s other objectives for the program, including education, demonstration/KTT, evaluation and replication. Critical components of the program that weave through all essential features of the overall design are plans for education, research and evaluation programs. Working with their growing in-‐house capacity and expanding list of external research partners, OWC’s plan for a living laboratory on the shores of Lake Simcoe bringing together wise-‐water ecological design, local agro-‐food innovation and integrated ecosystem services is an exciting vision that will yield multiple benefits to our integral ecology-‐society.


Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction

1.1 Structure of the Report

2.0 Clearwater Farm: Working with Soil to Save Water

3.0 Clearwater Farm: A review of the proposed farm design & production systems

3.1 Market Gardens, Mulch & Green Manures

3.2 Polyculture Orchard & Edible Forest Garden

3.3 Silvo-‐pasture Agroforestry, Tall-‐Grass Grazing & Forested Animal Husbandry

3.4 Keylines, Ponds & Contour Swales: Water on the Landscape

3.5 Bioswales & Hugelkultur

3.6 Post-‐harvest wash-‐water, Grey-‐water Re-‐use & Aquaponics

3.7 Rainwater Harvest, Storage & and Use in Irrigation

3.8 Season Extension Systems

3.9 Compost, Compost Teas, Vermi-‐compost, Biochar & Holistic Preparations

4.0 Education & Communication Program

5.0 Metrics & Evaluation Program

6.0 Conclusions

7.0 Glossary of Terms

References


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A typical agroecological farm has many interconnected parts and water connects them all. Driven by a motivation to maximize the total health of the system and sustain that health over time, the natural interactions between water, soil, air and biology are thus carefully nurtured in agroecological systems.


1.0 Introduction The OWC Clearwater Farm, proposed for the old Reed Farm -‐ a heritage property uniquely positioned on the shores of Lake Simcoe -‐ bridges the past with the future at a time and place of great change. Residing on the edge of the growing and dynamic Township of Georgina, like many communities in southern Ontario, this region is a landscape in transition from a largely rural agricultural and recreational economy, to one with more intensification and development, including residential, commercial, agricultural and industrial uses. Easy access to Hwy 404 makes the region a viable bedroom community for Toronto and as such pressure on the regions vital agricultural land-‐base is only going to increase. The stakes are therefore high for ‘the old Reed Farm’. Fortunately a local coalition headed by the Ontario Water Centre has brought forward a vision to bring the properties’ agricultural past into the future in an innovative and collaborative way. The objective of this report is to contextualize the proposal in light of what we know of the agro-‐food system status quo, then to review the agroecological design in light of progressive best practice in this field. Urbanization and globalization have impacts both on landscape, but also on culture and economy. As local economies are subjected the global market place, production of local foods has come under pressure from cheaper imports from abroad, forever changing the nature of what prior to industrialization would have been a largely regional food economy. The old Reed Farm came into being in this pre-‐industrial age and then at one point was probably deemed to be ‘too small’ to be ‘viable’ in the contemporary agricultural world known as the Green Revolution. But rather than succumb to conventional mixed use development, or face ongoing degradation from conventional lease hold cash-‐cropping, the new stewards of this land have recognized an emerging opportunity for farm-‐based agro-‐food education, celebration and research. This exciting proposal to establish a working farm and food hub based on regenerative agro-‐ecological principles is thus a fitting way to bring full circle this prominent heritage property. The vision for Clearwater Farm is for a dynamic and diverse facility that responds to the challenge of growing healthy food that is healthy for the environment, in particular soil health and water management. Poised to establish itself as a leader in “future-‐proofing” (aka adaptive capacity), a review of which will be the main focus of this report, Clearwater Farm is being designed to be resilient in the face of change, creating viable sustainable production systems now that will only get stronger and more vital into the future. Building on the BMPs inherent in LID and extending those principles even further into the farmscape using regenerative agro-‐ecological design principles, Clearwater Farm expects to become a regional if not global leader in regenerative water-‐wise agriculture. Furthermore, as a “living laboratory”, farming at Clearwater will have an emphasis on learning, demonstrating and testing the resiliency of its component systems at urban, suburban and rural production scales, suggesting it will have value across the region, among both urban gardeners and rural farmers alike.


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This vision is spelled out in the Clearwater Farm Business Plan (2015) and subsequent endeavours that build on the existing body of work from the Ontario Water Centre and Lady’s of the Lake. This vision is consistent with the emerging opportunities in the fields of local and organic agriculture, agri-‐tourism and culinary tourism as society continues to evolve and embrace more healthful lifestyles, nutritious diets and holistic land management approaches. In fact the growing body of literature suggest that not only can community food hubs such as this play an integral role in economic development and agricultural productivity, but also community health and well-‐being. As a facility Clearwater Farm is poised to become an invaluable piece of infrastructure for the region that responds to both emerging opportunities in agro-‐food, but also to issues of water quality and quantity within the watershed as laid out in the Lake Simcoe Protection Act (2008) and the Lake Simcoe Protection Plan (2009). 1.1 Structure of the Report This report aims to broaden and deepen the connections between the OWC Clearwater Farm Business Plan (April 2015) and the agro-‐ecological program under development for the future of the Reed Farm property in Georgina, Ontario. Specifically this report aims to first establish an impetus for the project and in particular the agroecological systems proposed for the site, by drawing on the work of researchers locally and internationally that point to the need for a shift in the predominant agricultural paradigm, a paradigm which is not adequately addressing some of the pre-‐eminent ecological challenges of our time, in particular soil loss and water pollution resulting from conventional agricultural practice. (Note: the social and economic, cum political and cultural, problems such as food security, food sovereignty, cultural consciousness and the like are not the focus of this report, but remain intertwined with both the problems and solutions herein.) Secondly, this report will explain in greater detail some of the features and systems included in the agro-‐ecological program proposed for the site and discuss how they address the negative externalities associated with conventional practices. Linking these design solutions is a proposal for an education, communication and demonstration program that will assist in driving the social change required to spread agroecological innovation further afield. Finally, this report will discuss some of the evaluation metrics and techniques that Clearwater Farm hopes to explore and develop to track progress in this multifaceted facility. OWC and the Clearwater Farm Board have taken a very holistic approach in their research, design and development of the Clearwater Farm proposal and this report will build on this vision of community building and economic development within the context of demonstrating, educating and innovating in the realm of sustainable agriculture and wise water use. Herein this report specifically aims to address and explain some of the more technical components of the proposed agro-‐ecological


system, how they work on this specific site and why they are relevant within the context of the OWC’s mission. This report does not include a complete baseline ecological study, nor would it have been possible within the scope of this report to conduct such studies. To fully inform the detailed site planning and preparation, such studies will be required as this project moves into full implementation on the ground. Such studies (including a full hydrological study, topographical mapping, flora, fauna and soil food web inventories, etc.) will play a critical role not only in informing the detailed site planning, but also in providing baselines that can be used for evaluation purposes over time. Indeed one of the critical roles of the OWC’s Clearwater Farm will be looking at innovative ways to track and measure the agro-‐ecological performance of our farm systems building on and expanding the BMPs as laid out in rural planning literature, including Ontario’s Environmental Farm Plan (EFP), the Rural Landowners Stewardship Guide for the Ontario Landscape (2007) and Rural Planning and Development in Canada (2010). Because of the near-‐urban nature of our site and the Clearwater Boards goal of impacting both rural and urban stakeholders, we also consider the emerging literatures on food systems and urban agriculture, including the seminal Canadian publications Agricultural Urbanism (2010) and OPPI Planning for Food Systems in Ontario: A Call to Action (2011).


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2.0 Clearwater Farm: Working with Soil to Save our Water Specifically, the Clearwater Farm responds to a number of specific recommendations laid out by the Ontario Centre for Climate Impacts and Adaptation (2011), which lays out a detailed call to action to increase the adaptive capacity (aka resiliency) within the watershed, including:

• Using remote sensing and other innovative new tools to map changes in land use, soil health and vegetative cover

• Fostering green infrastructure that offer education and demonstration opportunities to engage community on these issues

• Developing conservation strategies to reduce water demand and increase rainwater harvesting, while simultaneously reimagining and redeveloping the agricultural landscape as place which integrates increased tree cover, improved year round soil cover and dramatically improved soil health and water retention.

Not surprisingly these recommendations reinforce the findings of the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario (ECO) and the responsibility of Government as outlined in Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights (1993) and subsequent acts of Parliament. ECO specifically recommends, in “Biodiversity: A Nation’s Commitment, An Obligation for Ontario” and “Investing in Soils for a Sustainable Future” (2013) that we have not only moral but legal obligations to ensure that ecosystems that provide essential ecological services, including terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, be restored and protected. This research spells out some key recommendations that Clearwater farm will be well positioned to act on, including:

• Better metrics around everything soil related, including soil organic matter and soil erosion, using advanced remote sensing technologies where applicable, but with the intention of also providing improved real time data for farmers and other land managers.

• Restoration of ecosystems that provide essential services, including services related to water, and curbing pollution of those ecosystems from nutrient loading.

• The reports call for expanded research into the area of soil ecology and its application in sustainable agriculture, which is exactly where Clearwater Farm is positioned.

On a national basis, Environment Canada’s “Environmental Sustainability of Canadian Agriculture: Agri-‐Environmental Indicator Report Series -‐ Report No. 3” suggests that “Overall…producers are responding to environmental concerns and some progress has been made towards environmental sustainability”. With regards to soil in particular, this report suggests that “Improvements in land management practices, such as increased adoption of conservation and no-‐till practices, reduced use of summer fallow,


particularly tillage summer fallow and increased forage and permanent cover crops were primarily responsible for the improved agri-‐environmental performance for soil quality”. This is all good news and clearly an improvement on earlier baselines. However, these indices do not tell the full story, as the same report’s Water Quality Agri-‐Environmental Performance Index is in decline with the “increased application of nutrients (Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorus (P)) as fertilizer and manure was the main driver for the declining trend in the performance index for water quality throughout Canada”. The report suggests that while the diversity of cropping systems and heavy rainfalls in Eastern Canada make there risks here somewhat higher, an overall trend of moving livestock operations from Eastern to Western Canada adds the decline in Western Canadian water quality. Based on these findings, EC is recommending the following:

• Adoption of nutrient management practices such as soil nutrient testing, optimizing the timing, application and incorporation of solid and liquid manure and fertilizer, and increased manure storage capacity.

• Improvements could be made in other areas such as solid and liquid manure storage practices, livestock access to surface water and pesticide application. Soil conservation tillage and no-‐till practices generally increased across Canada, together affecting 72% of cropland in 2006, contributing to the overall improvement in soil health across Canada.

• Beneficial management practices such as conserving riparian areas, adopting conservation tillage, managing woodlands and implementing rotational grazing should be encouraged, particularly in agricultural regions that have limited wildlife habitat capacity and in areas where there has been a significant decline in habitat capacity.

Once again, the Clearwater Farm program directly responds to these urgent recommendations with a number of innovative design and management solutions. Furthermore, while these EC indices are useful, they do not address or include such critical aspects as soil biology, energy return on energy investment (EROEI), animal health and welfare, or the cumulative impacts of agricultural pollutants on the health of people or the environment. Many of these recommendations from local and provincial experts are echoing what international experts have been saying for some time, including two high profile UN bodies: the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and the Food and Agriculture Organization. In 2012 the UN Special Rapporteur visited Canada and reported the following in his end of mission statement: “A thriving small-‐scale farming sector is essential to local food systems, and it is indeed these local food systems that food policy councils and localities throughout Canada now seek to strengthen. These systems can deliver considerable ecological and health benefits by increasing access to fresh and nutritious foods to children in schools, underserved urban and Northern remote communities as well as


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residents living in long-‐term care homes.” While the primary focus of the Rapporteurs visit was in assessing food access rather than methods of food production, his comments clearly demonstrate the link between healthy outcomes for people and healthy outcomes for the land. The more startling findings from the Rapporteurs findings related to the state of food insecurity in this country, in particular among low-‐income and aboriginal peoples:

• Approximately 1.92 million people in Canada, aged 12 or older, lived in food insecure households in 2007/2008 and a staggering 1 in 10 families, 10.8 per cent, with at least one child under the age of six were food insecure during the same period.

• In 2011, Food Banks Canada calculated that close to 900,000 Canadians were accessing food banks for assistance each month, slightly over half of whom were receiving social assistance.

• The Special Rapporteur was disconcerted by the deep and severe food insecurity faced by aboriginal peoples across Canada living both on-‐ and off-‐reserve in remote and urban areas. Statistics on First Nations specific food insecurity are few, however the First Nations Regional Longitudinal Health Survey (RHS 2008/10) indicates that 17.8 per cent of First Nations adults (age 25–39) and 16.1 per cent of First Nations adults (age 40–54) reported being hungry but did not eat due to lack of money for food in 2007/2008.

These numbers are truly staggering and as such any community food and farming initiate would be remiss if these realities were not accounted for and addressed as part of a broader operational plan. Clearwater Farm intends to develop some very clear objectives in this regard and will be working closely with the local Georgina Island First Nation and all of our partners to ensure that concerns over food security, food sovereignty and the right to clean water for all are part of this collaboration. 2015 is the International Year of Soils and FAO is championing the cause. Their report released earlier this year states very clearly that unless we place a renewed emphasis on soil health, not only will food quality and quantity suffer in the long term, but the ecosystems that support agriculture and indeed all life will continue to be degraded. In this report, entitled “Agroecology to Reverse Soil Degradation and Achieve Food Security” the FAO lays out a number of recommendations for the future of food and farming consistent with agroecological methods:

• Increasing and monitoring soil organic matter • Facilitating and monitoring of soil biodiversity • Use of polycultures and agroforestry systems • Use of cover crops • Crop-‐livestock Integration


Much of this research runs counter to a competing narrative in the agriculture literature which suggests that biotechnology and genetic engineering, combined with further mechanization and industrialization of agriculture, are the answer to the “global food crisis”. Not surprisingly this narrative is the one championed largely by the corporations that control the industrial agriculture complex. While the notion of simply producing more food for a growing global population is a compelling notion, researchers have shown that in fact globally we already grow more than enough food to feed ourselves and food insecurity is a result rather of low incomes, land access and/or distribution challenges. For this reason, Clearwater Farm and the OWC have adopted a position that building local capacity and focussing on growing healthy soil and a resilient landscape using agroecological methods best fits with the needs of the community and the guiding principles of the organization, in particular with regards to water. And OWC/Clearwater Farm is not alone. Here is a partial list of other local organizations that have adopted this position and are moving forward in support of local and regionally focused agroecological farming:

• In Every Community a Place for Food: The Role of the Community Food Centre in Building a Local, Sustainable and Just Food System. Metcalf Foundation, June 2010.

• Models and Best Practices for Building Effective Local Food Systems in Ontario. K. Landman et al., (OMAFRA/UofG), December 2010.

• Local Food Initiatives in Canada – An Overview and Policy Recommendations. Canadian Co-‐operative Association, June 2008.

• Cultivating Food Connections: Towards a Healthy and Sustainable Food System for Toronto. Toronto Public Health, May 2010.

• Seeding the City: Land Use Policies to Promote Urban Agriculture. Public Health Law and Policy, October 2011.

• Community Food Security. Position of Dieticians of Canada, 2007. • A Call to Action on Food Security: Key Messages and Backgrounder. Ontario

Society of Nutrition Professionals in Public Health, June 2011. • Menu 2020: Ten Good Food Ideas for Ontario. Metcalf Foundation, June 2010. • Healthy Communities and Planning for Food: Planning for Food Systems in

Ontario, A Call to Action. Ontario Professional Planners Institute, June 2011. • Local Food Systems and Public Policy: A review of the Literature. Equiterre &

The Centre for Trade Policy and Law, Carleton University, September 2009. • Building Communities with Farms: Insights from developers, architects and

farmers on integrating agriculture and development. The Liberty Prairie Foundation.

The collective call to action is growing louder by the day. This very partial list does not even scratch the surface of the academic or popular literature on the subject of local food or sustainable agriculture. It does offer a sense of the rising tide of both public interest and professional attention being focused at the intersection of food, agriculture


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and society. It certainly offers ample affirmation that the goals and objectives of Clearwater Farm are consistent with what experts in their interdisciplinary field of study are saying and a huge counter weight to the rich and powerful corporate interests whom would rather see the future of food and farming go in a different direction. However, for farmers, tried and tested that get results are what really matter, not a whole bunch of studies. In this regard farmers of all stripes are working very hard to adopt some new BMPs to incrementally improve their farms performance; no doubt these measures are what is needed for now even if they are only partial solutions. But for the future, these incremental changes may not be enough and as a demonstration, innovation and education farm Clearwater is in a position to explore new horizons in sustainable agriculture and experiment with radically different farm systems which can be built in from the beginning. In the next section we will discuss some of these innovative ideas being brought forward.


3.0 Clearwater Farm: A review of the proposed farm design and production systems The proposed program for Clearwater Farm draws on a number of agricultural traditions that are difficult to sum up in one word alone; the complexity and detail of this plan suggests that Clearwater is not just another organic agriculture project with a food hub tacked on the side. However, in the minds of the public, ‘organic’ is the term most often associated with the progression beyond the chemical input-‐oriented conventional agriculture, and for good reason. Studies have shown that organic agriculture results in less nutrient leaching, improved soil structure, higher carbon storage and increased floral and faunal diversity (Bengtsson et al., 2005; Oehl et al., 2001). Furthermore, while the benefits of organic farming to the environment vary by agricultural sector, scale and location, a 2010 study by Lynch, MacRae and Martin concluded that the most benefits are accrued where organic farm systems are embedded in community at the local and regional levels “where organic, local and whole foods intersect”. Again, this is precisely the sweet spot in which Clearwater Farm will be culturally positioned. As a hub for demonstration, education, research and of course food production, Clearwater Farm aims to become a living ecological laboratory. However, because of its unique site characteristics and the creativity being brought to bare in this, the design phase of the project, the farm will have the capability of showcasing farm systems at different scales of production suitable across a range of landscapes, from urban to suburban to rural. Furthermore, the benefits of the farm will be more than the sum of the parts, by showcasing how the integration of these systems into the whole can result in closing the loop of nutrient and water cycles, resulting in a lower overall net-‐impact than any one part on its own. On top of this, the opportunity to track and report on metrics from Clearwater Farms’ initial 8 acres, compared with those from the neighbouring 22 that comprise the remainder of the original Reed Farmstead (which for the first five years will remain under conventional cash-‐cropping), provides an ideal control site for purposes of comparison. The proposed evaluation program will be explored in the next section, but now we turn to the systems themselves, which can be laid out as follows:

3.1 Market Gardens, Mulch & Green Manures 3.2 Polyculture Orchard & Edible Forest Garden 3.3 Silvo-‐pasture Agroforestry, Tall-‐Grass Grazing & Forested Animal Husbandry 3.4 Keylines, Ponds & Contour Swales: Water on the Landscape 3.5 Bioswales & Hugelkultur 3.6 Post-‐harvest wash-‐water, Grey-‐water Re-‐use & Aquaponics 3.9 Compost, Compost Teas, Vermi-‐compost, Biochar & Holistic Preparations 3.7 Rainwater Harvest, Storage & and Use in Irrigation 3.8 Season Extension Systems 3.9 Compost, Compost Teas, Vermi-‐compost, Biochar & Holistic Preparations


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All of these features of the proposed farm plan are built on the following ontological perspective, backed by the writings, teachings and applied projects of leading researcher/farmers such as Elaine Ingham, Steven Gleissman, Joel Salatin, Darren Doughtery, Michael Phillips, Abe Collins, David Jacke, Eric Toensmeier, Ben Faulk and Mark Sheppard, among many others:

• A healthy economy and stable society in the future will be dependent on our adaptive capacity in the face of climate change, in particular the resiliency of ecosystems to continue to provide essential services that support all life. This will require not only ‘sustaining farming’ but also adopting regenerative farm systems, as most of our agricultural land base is degraded and deficient of adequate soil biology and nutrients. While topsoil is renewable to some extent, topsoil loss due to erosion caused by out-‐dated approaches needs to be stopped and indeed reversed.

• Along with regenerating the quality and quantity of our agricultural soils, we need to grow the capacity of these agro-‐ecosystems to increase yields without expanding the agriculture footprint. Indeed, in-‐tact natural systems, forests, prairies, wetlands and the like should be preserved in perpetuity as the biological diversity that they harbour and ecosystem services that they provide are invaluable.

• Our primary approach to meet the growing food needs of humanity should be through better design and management of agro-‐ecological systems and less wasteful, more equitable distribution of the harvest. This essentially requires both sustainable production of healthy food and equitable access to nutritionally adequate diets.

• The key to producing healthy food is soil health, defined as having a robust soil food web, high levels of organic matter, good structure and moisture retention capacity.

• The ecosystem services provided by plant-‐soil communities, in particular cleaning and holding of water, are dependent of the biodiversity in the soil, in particular mycorrhizal fungi.

• Water and oxygen content in the soil, and cycling of nutrients, is also directly related to the health of the soil food web and the structure of soil that healthy food webs create.

• Building up organic matter in the soil supports the development of healthy, diverse soil food webs

• Annual tillage, the application of pesticides and chemical fertilizers is absolutely destructive to soil food webs, in particular the mycorrhizal and other fungi that are essential to creating resilient agro-‐ecosystems that don’t require ongoing amendment from energy intensive external inputs

• While a reliance on inorganic external inputs such as chemical fertilizers and herbicides can still produce plant yields, the energy return on energy invested pales in comparison to systems that are not reliant on such inputs.


• Agroecological methods have few if any of the negative externalities associated with conventional cropping regimes (nutrient leaching, soil erosion, chemical drift, etc.) while offering a multitude of ecosystem services and human health benefits not found in conventional systems

• Agroecological systems with a focus on healthy soil will be more resilient over time and less susceptible to the impacts of climate change

• Systems integration, including integration of animal-‐plant-‐agroforestry systems, nutrient recovery systems and heat recovery systems, not only saves energy and water, but in the case of animal-‐plant systems integration, can significantly contribute to fostering improved soil health.

Having addressed the ontology and epistemology inherent in this work, the focus now shifts to assessing the agro-‐ecological designs, methodologies and regenerative system components that will be employed at Clearwater Farm. 3.1 Market Gardens A key element in the Clearwater Farm agroecological systems plan is the market garden. Market gardening is a classic component of many mixed farms, with high-‐yielding annual vegetable bed systems gardened intensively from early spring until late fall aided by season extension. Such systems can create good returns for a farm and links up nicely with a number of other systems, nutrient and water flows. Some of the classic practitioner literature in this field includes the likes of Elliot Coleman’s The New Organic Grower and John Jeavons How to Grow More Vegetables. In addition, Britain’s Soil Association, Canadian Organic Growers (COG), Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania and the Ecological Farming Association of Ontario (EFAO) are huge repositories of data and knowledge on the subject of organic gardening, vegetable production and field cropping. Some techniques specific to the market garden include the use of organic mulch such as straw (preferably generated on farm on from organic farms as locally as possible), which performs multiple functions, including surpassing weeds, retaining moisture by slowing evaporation and building up of organic matter as the material decays. Similarly, any bare soil within the market garden or across the entire farmscape is to be seeded down (or under-‐sewn where an existing crop already stands) with annual green manure cover crops in cases where perennial polycultures are not under establishment. Inter-‐cropping and companion planting techniques can further extend resiliency and synergies in the system by taking advantage of known symbiosis. Using biological controls such as ladybugs, nematodes, ducks or the like can also play a role in both the garden and greenhouse to help manage systems when certain crops or yields are under-‐pressure. However, the goal here will always be to bring biological balance and robustness to the system, which in turn should bring soil chemistry, nutrient and water availability into balance.


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Irrigation is always an important consideration in the market garden as annual vegetables typically require considerable irrigation. To the extent that innovative keyline earthworks can restore some of the soil’s indigenous moisture retention capacity, additional pressurized irrigation may be avoided. However, where irrigation is to be used, gravity fed systems running off roof-‐fed rainwater collection systems are Clearwater’s preference because of their low net impact. Where gravity fed systems are not an option, pressurized drip-‐tape systems will be deployed. Drip systems are more efficient in water delivery, though in practice they have some functional downside to overhead sprinklers and as such most market gardeners and vegetable growers will have a hybrid irrigation system. Where rainwater capture and cistern storage does not meet the full needs of the market garden, surface water storage in on-‐site ponds provide a back-‐up option. Pumped and pressurized groundwater from on site wells would also meet the needs of the garden, though at a higher environmental cost. Similarly, centrally treated City water is available to this site at the road and would be the last resort for watering the garden. Grey water re-‐use and nutrient recovery is another key element of the proposed research and demonstration on the site. Here Clearwater plans to work with architects and site engineers to ensure that all systems are built to the required specifications and link efficiently with agricultural operations. 3.2 Polyculture Orchards & Edible Forest Garden Many of the pre-‐eminent works in this field stem from the early works of such luminaries as J. Russel Smith (Tree Crops: A permanent Agriculture, 1950), Masanobu Fukuoka (Natural Farming, 1960’s), Bill Mollison & David Holmgren (Permaculture, 1970’s) and Robert Hart (Forest Gardening, 1980’s). More recent works from Toby Hemenway (Gaia’s Garden, 2009), Martin Crawford (Creating a Forest Garden, 2010) and the seminal work from David Jacke and Eric Toensmeier (Edible Forest Gardening, 2005) comprising two volumes and over 1000 pages in total have built out the theory and practice of forest gardening in astounding detail. This list would not be complete without Michael Phillips Holistic Orchard (2012), perhaps the pre-‐eminent authority on holistic approaches to organic orcharding. The theory and practice of forest gardens is clearly an area of great depth and offers a huge opportunity to blend sustainable, diverse agricultural production with habitat creation, soil building and water management. The manner in which guilds of synergistic plants are complied, installed and managed over time would clearly take many hundreds of pages to describe and the number of possibilities is almost infinite making this an area ripe for experimentation and farmer-‐led research. Aside from the many nuances of these systems, the basic principle is one of functional interconnection. Jacke and Toensmeier state, “The purpose of functional and self-‐regulating design is to place elements or components in such a way that each serves the needs, and accepts the products, of other elements.” As many of the seasoned practitioners in this field


would say, forest garden builds on nature’s own design and is in a sense a for of bio-‐mimicry. In designing our agricultural landscape in a way that mimics what nature already wants to, and does well, we get multiple benefits from and almost totally self-‐regulating system, without the expensive cost and labour burden of regular inputs and laborious interventions. Forest garden systems, as with many of the features in the Clearwater Farm Plan, blend harmoniously with other design layers, including the bioswale and hugelkultur berms, silo-‐pasture, forested animal husbandry and keyline landscape design. In fact they could even be thought of as all part of the same system rather than separate component parts. However, research has shown that the highest net primary productivity in these systems occurs not once the perennial forest cover reaches its maximum canopy, whereby much of the landscape is in shade (though in some cases this is the desired condition such as for shitake mushroom cultivation), but rather a so-‐called mid-‐succession environment dominated by sun-‐loving pioneer trees and woody crops such as tree fruit, nuts and berries. Fukuoka even wild-‐crafted annual vegetables within his citrus dominated forest garden in south Japan; medicinal herbs and tea plants are another high-‐value crop well suited to fill in the understories in these mid-‐succession environments. 3.3 Silvo-‐pasture Agroforestry, Tall-‐Grass Grazing & Forested Animal Husbandry The concept of silvo-‐pasture agroforestry again builds on the concept of integrated farm systems, herby integrating tree-‐cropping and pastured livestock. These systems have been around for centuries if not millennia and are used all around the world. What defines them is really the notion that trees are an integral component of an ecologically resilient landscape and can be incorporated into a pasturing system because they offer not only shade, hydrology, erosion control and soil food web benefits, but depending on the species type can offer their own yields or yield improvements through fruits and nuts dropped to grazing animals below. The first phase of the Clearwater Farm Plan demonstrates elements of these systems, though the objective is clearly to apply the designs to larger farmscapes where even greater benefits can be accrued. Larger spaces allow for larger livestock and more layers to be applied to the system, thus bringing in a more robust cycling of nutrients, faster growth in soil food webs and more biological diversity. According to research by researcher/practioners Abe Collins, Christine Jones, Ben Faulk and respected Midwestern farm research Institutes Rodale and Savanah, multi-‐species cover crops and a diversity of above ground vegetative architecture contributes to diversity below ground. Living soils then have the inherent capacity to create a healthy soil structure (‘clumpy aggregates’) that can hold moisture and better cycle nutrients without them leaching away.


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In such integrated permaculture systems as silvo-‐pasture agroforestry, the intent is to create both yields for nature and yields for humans. In this case nature’s yields will include increases in biological diversity, both in the soil and the above ground architecture of flora and fauna. I should also result in improvements to soil structure, soil depth and soil organic matter as the biological diversity stimulates natural processes in the soil, using the sun’s energy to drive the biology which drive the nutrient cycling and soil formation processes. But it is not just plants that can help build soil; animals can too. Of course, poor grazing practices can have the opposite effect on nature, resulting in erosion, topsoil loss and in extreme cases desertification. Typical grazing practices involving low-‐labour inputs and a sparse population of animals occupying the same paddock for a long period of time, though seemingly idyllic in appearance do little good for the soil or long term pasture health. Conversely, innovative graziers have recently begun realizing that mob or stock grazing, high-‐density herds grazing tall grass on very short rotations has much greater benefits to land and yields. Ben Faulk describes the following as among the many benefits of this innovative new approach, crediting the likes of Abe Collins and Joel Salatin for popularizing the innovation:

• Grazing taller pasture drives more carbon/organic matter deeper into the soil as these more deeply rooted plants are grazed and shed corresponding higher quantity and deeper quality of root mass without sacrificing the plants ability to recover quickly.

• The rapid movement of more densely packed animals through the landscape tends to result in more effective delivery of nutrient-‐rich excrements into the soil, stimulating soil biology and plant growth.

• Larger stock can often be followed in the grazing patter with smaller stock (chickens and turkeys following cows for example) as an added bonus; these relationships are a functional fit and offer a number of beneficial regenerative synergies.

Such grazing systems are more labour intensive than traditional paddocking, which is less dynamic, but given the stated-‐goal of regenerating soil so that it can provide maximum ecosystem services, including filtering and water and retaining moisture, the additional labour is a small price to pay. Added benefits of job creation, yield improvement and skill development for new farmers are icing on the cake. Silvo-‐pastures are not the only environment in which Clearwater Farm proposes to employ livestock. A portion of the property is currently over-‐grown forest, providing another perfect opportunity to demonstrate regenerative agriculture. Forested animal husbandry allows us to use animal skill, instinct and energy to get work done in the forest and produce a nice yield at the same time. Depending on where a forest is at in its evolution, different animals or different species may be deployed to get a job done. Goats are great browsers for example and good for thinning, while pigs are good at


rooting and great at finding food in the forest. Some brush will of course have to moved by human hands and really thick stands will need to be thinned with saws…which can of course become lumber for building fences, shelters and other outbuildings. Such activity can actually stimulate greater net primary productivity in an overgrown forest, resulting in healthier stands with greater biodiversity. 3.4 Keylines, Ponds & Contour Swales: Water on the Landscape Storing water in the soil is the cheapest and most effective approach and the healthier soil is the more water it will store. While storing water in tanks, barrels and cisterns, especially that which is caught from roofs, makes perfect sense as well and is often necessary to avoid tapping into municipal water systems for irrigation needs, storing water in the landscape remains one of the primary goals of the Clearwater Farm plan. In Gaia’s Garden, Hemenway offers five complementary techniques to support the goal of maximizing water storage:

1. Building organically rich soil 2. Contouring the landscape to catch water and direct it to where it is needed 3. Including drought-‐tolerant plants when possible 4. Planting densely to shade the soil 5. Mulching deeply

This is a fair list and would be entirely appropriate for the urban or small-‐holder scale property. However, contour swales on a broad scale may not be the most cost-‐effective or even the most intelligent way to manage water on the landscape, because if they are indeed on contour they may not effectively be able to move water across a landscape to areas that are perennially dry, such as ridges. Furthermore, on larger scales, directing swale overflow to retention ponds may offer an opportunity for much greater water storage and offer the additional benefit of making water accessible for surface irrigation. The Clearwater Farm design proposal highlights how such a scheme can be integrated into a mixed farm landscape. At broader landscape scales, such as that proposed for the adjacent 22 acre parcel at Clearwater Farm to become available in 5 years time, the proposal calls for a keyline system to form the basis of the landscape architecture. According to permaculture pioneer Bill Mollison, P.A. Yeomans’ Water for Every Farm: The Keyline Plan (1954) “is without doubt the pioneering modern text on landscape design for water conservation and gravity-‐fed flow irrigation. As it also involves patterning, tree planting, soil treatment, and fencing alignment, it is the first book on functional landscape design in modern times.” Keyline is, however, an almost non-‐existent pattern in North American agricultural operations, in part because the concept originated in Australia where they often suffer severe water shortages, but also because, like permaculture, it is an


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integrated system of permanent agriculture ill-‐suited to the agro-‐industrial complex that dominates the vast agrarian territories. North American agriculture could be described a persistently dis-‐integrated and commodity driven, with annual grains, corn and legumes grown in highly mechanized systems on tile drained fields, reliant on energy-‐intensive external chemical inputs and produced to support confined, intensive livestock operations. While waste products from the livestock operations often do end up back on farmers’ fields, it is usually in very unstable forms resulting in excess nutrients leaching into groundwater and causing persistent pollution. Annual tillage and tile draining adds insult to injury here as topsoil volume, soil biology and organic matter are rapidly drawn down. Keyline systems begin with the premise of holding water up in the landscape and favour retention and dispersion of soil moisture, quite the antithesis in comparison to tile draining. The benefit of tile draining, which is very limited with the sole purpose of drying out the fields quicker so cropping with large equipment can begin earlier in the season, also come with a huge cost, burying huge volumes of petroleum-‐based plastics in the soil. Keyline, on the other hand, uses earthworks such as swales, berms and ponds, as well as the innovative Yeoman’s plough to move water from persistently wet areas (valleys) to persistently dry areas (ridges), resulting in opportunities for gravity-‐fed irrigation and maximizing the volume of water-‐retention in the soil. When combined with agro-‐forestry style permanent agricultures and an emphasis on supporting the soil food web through innovative grazing practices, use of perennial polycultures and application of beneficial biology laden compost (and compost teas), diverse high-‐yielding sustainable production coupled with a multitude of positive externalities for society and the environment is the ultimate outcome. At Clearwater Farm, the opportunity to showcase and measure these innovative agro-‐ecological design practices in juxtaposition with conventional cropping on the neighbouring fields and surrounding area presents a tremendous opportunity to move towards a more resilient, adaptive agriculture. 3.5 Bioswales & Hugelkultur These features, like many in our proposal, perform multiple functions in the agro-‐ecosystem. Though their historical origins may be open to debate, Hugelkultur baring historical connection to Germany and Eastern Europe, they are essentially the same ‘technology’ in a slightly different form. Bioswales are essentially swales or trenches that are then backfilled with woody debris an/or other organic matter, while Hugelkultur are berms built over heaps constructed of similar woody debris, garden clippings, rotting down logs and the like. Rotting logs, it so happens, are broken down mainly by fungi and as has been previously discussed we welcome the presence of more fungal systems into the garden because of the synergies that they create with the plants and soil biology, both in making nutrients bioavailable, distributing water and soaking up of pollutants and excess nutrients. Indeed, bioswales can be customized using


different organic inputs with properties that attract different spectrums of biology, so depending on the location, types of material available and desired application, different organic media can be applied within the berm/swales designs resulting not only in low-‐cost but highly effective multifunctional features. The positioning of berms and swales on the landscape is necessarily tied into the keyline and pond infrastructure to ensure that water is spread out and held up in the landscape as much as possible. Once constructed these features are then planted down with perennial polycultures, agro-‐forestry guilds and self-‐seeding annuals as rarely to almost never would one want to till this to bare soil for seed bed preparation. They also function well as part of the broader silvopasture scheme in which animals can move along side and through these features offering them a rich and varied diet. Clearly there are a number of variables at play in this ecological design equation, and when applied in different climates and different seasons results would vary. This presents an exciting opportunity for research and development of appropriate accessible technologies and Clearwater Farm has proposed working with their institutional, academic and other partners on this research and integrating it into the broader demonstration, education and innovation agenda for the farm. 3.6 Post-‐harvest wash-‐water, Grey-‐water re-‐use & Aquaponics A logical extension in the use of bio-‐swales is the filtering of grey-‐water and wash water from the facilities at Clearwater Farm. There are in fact a myriad of possible filtration combinations, depending on what “waste water” streams are intended to flow through the system. At present, Clearwater Farm’s physical plant and built infrastructure is still in the design phase and thus a firm proposal is unavailable. However, it is exciting to consider the possibilities, both from the perspective of the potential reductions in fresh water demand from the application of bio-‐filtration, but also in the synergies created from the nutrient recovery. Many such systems are currently being designed and experimented with in our region and this project presents another tremendous opportunity to experiment. In Mollison’s seminal work, Permaculture: A Designers Manual, a number of such multi-‐phase systems are discussed in detail. Most involve a sand and gravel stage, at least one aquatic polyculture plant phase, some sort of suspended solids settlement tank and anaerobic digester, perhaps an aeration flow form, though not necessarily in this order. The exact specs on any system would of course have to be scoped to the specific site and grey water flow requirements, factoring in climate and vegetation variances, re-‐use requirements and the like. Permaculturalists strive to close the loop of nutrient cycles by creating permanent interconnected, deeply rooted systems that are largely self-‐fertile. Among the original


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agro-‐ecological manuscripts would have to be F.H. King’s seminal book from 1911, Farmers of Forty Centuries: Permanent Agriculture of China, Korea and Japan. King, an American agriculturist and academic, took in the systems of ‘The Far East’ during a tour that would change the course of his thinking about nutrient recovery and in particular systems that linked fish production on land with nutrient recovery from grey and even black water systems. North American sensibilities have obviously never truly warmed to this notion and fears over transmission of pathogens and harmful bacteria continue to hold back innovation in this field. Aquaponics is, however, becoming more mainstream and as wild fish stocks in our oceans continue their tragic declines and suspicion about the negative externalities associated with ocean-‐based aquaculture persist, growing fish on land in tanks or ponds linked with plant systems designed to remove or recirculate nutrients and ultimately reduce the loss of excess nutrients to natural systems, becomes an attractive alternative. Literature in this field, both from academics and practitioners is growing and more entrepreneurs are taking up the challenge of bridging theory and practice. Sylvia Bernstein’s Aquaponic Gardening is one such ‘how to’ guide, which claims that “Aquaponic systems are much more productive and use 90% less water than conventional gardens. Other advantages include no weeds, fewer pests and no watering, fertilizing, bending digging or heavy lifting.” By all accounts Clearwater’s proposal to include aquaponics in the design of their winter greenhouse fits perfectly within their goal of innovation and demonstration of water-‐wise agriculture. 3.7 Rainwater Harvest, Storage & and Use in Irrigation How water is harvested, stored and distributed at Cleawater Farm will very much depend on the Zone. In permaculture design terms, zones radiated more or less out from the centre, which on your typical homestead would be where your primary dwelling and most often used spaces would be located, such as tool sheds, cold storage, livestock barn, granary or kitchen garden. Moving out from the centre, zones would feature less often-‐used infrastructure, pastures, woodlots or what not. Water storage is one feature, along with circulation, that needs to be considered across all zones because depending on the climate and moisture holding capacity of the soil additional irrigation or watering of livestock could be required. Water storage, be it in a pond or cistern, also has multiple functions, acting at times as heat sink, erosion control, an aesthetic feature, biodiversity attractor and habitat provider. Irrespective of the stated goal to store as much moisture as possible in the soil where the farm can get the maximum benefit from the water at the least amount of cost, the Clearwater Farm plan lays out additional measures for best-‐practice rainwater harvest, storage and reuse for irrigation. The existing plan also calls for some surface water storage in the form of interconnected keyline swale-‐fed ponds, from which water could be drawn for irrigation, but for year round use and as a hedge against severe drought conditions, the installation of cistern tanks is proposed. Currently the team is speaking with suppliers and evaluating a range of materials, price points and locations for


cisterns, as there is not necessarily a clear-‐cut best practice in this regard and is context dependent. Harvesting surfaces meanwhile will include the existing barn and farmhouse, as well as most of the additional buildings included in the development plan. Field irrigation will be almost entirely high-‐quality long-‐life span drip irrigation technology. Drip irrigation offers many benefits over over-‐head sprinklers, which can lead to up to 80% loss to evaporation. Drip irrigation on the other hand delivers water right to the root systems and minimizes water loss to evaporation. Furthermore, many plants (such as heat-‐loving tomatoes) prefer not to have their aerial parts watered, as this can lead to unnecessary propagation of moulds and viruses. 3.8 Season Extension Systems The Clearwater Farm plan includes a number of innovation season extension components, which when properly designed and managed can result in increasing yields over longer periods of time at a fraction of the water and energy costs compared to the imported food alternatives. A 2005 study from Region of Waterloo Public Health Planner Marc Xuereb look at precisely this question, the environmental implications of food imports. He concluded, based on 58 foods commonly grown and eaten in the region, if all unnecessary imports were substituted with locally grown alternatives, the result would be “an annual reduction in GHG emissions of 49,485 tonnes, the equivalent of taking 16, 191 cars of the roads”. While this report can only be used as a general conclusion due the number of variables within these systems, it does suggest that our local year-‐round production systems should be supported to provide both food security and a lower ecological footprint to the system overall. Greenhouses have been around since at least Victorian times, if not longer, and some of these elegant old-‐style structures remain dotted across the estates of Europe. Problem with the traditional design is the amount of heat they lose at night and as such are not a great option for the cold winter climate in Canada. The next generation of passive solar design is already coming into practice in Canada. One key feature is the southerly orientation combined with the replace of a north facing glass wall with something very well insulated that can also act as a heat sink. Flexible dual-‐ply transparent polymers are replacing glass, thus reducing cost and increasing flexibility. Of course, greenhouses have to be neither opulent nor made of expensive new materials to be horticulturally functional. Elliot Coleman’s Four Season Harvest certainly attests to the inventiveness of season extension designs, ranging from greenhouses and high tunnels to low tunnels and cold frames made from recycled materials. One of Coleman’s big innovations was the notion of the moving greenhouse, not something the Victorians though of as far as I know. However, Coleman showed that by mounting the greenhouse on rails and making it light enough but ridging enough to be pulled along the ground, a farmer could essentially get two birds with one stone, growing a heat-‐


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loving crop under plastic beside a cool crop, moving the structure over the cool crop as winter set in and the heat loving crops were finished. This meant a prolonged season on the cool crop that could extend right through the winter with little added heat. By bringing additional heat sinks into the greenhouses and hi-‐tunnel, in the form of water barrels or anything that could hold thermal mass, additional ‘free heat’ collected from the sun during the day could be released to cold spaces over the course of the night. The ongoing pursuit of this ‘passive solar’ construction continues to run its course not only in farming but also in green building and construction in general. The concept is basically the same: create a high-‐performance building envelope that eliminates drafts and thermal conduction; make it well insulated and highly effective in collecting and storing solar radiation. Leading edge greenhouse design now includes multi-‐ply high-‐tunnels with air or bubble barriers to reduce heat loss and heat recovery systems, which redistribute air from hot spots (heat rises remember) back down into the soil through a series of perforated lines. Depending on the budget, geothermal systems can be installed for additional water or ground source heat and integrated grey water systems are also being built into greenhouse designs, offering heat and nutrient recovery. Inside any greenhouse, plants can benefit from a symbiosis with animals through the cold months. Chicken keepers know that greenhouses are ideal environments in which to overwinter laying flocks and other small livestock as well. Vermi-‐composts are an excellent idea for the winter greenhouse, offering multiple functions including decomposition services for organic wastes, heat and fertility by-‐products. Clearwater Farm, in true Victorian fashion, will experiment with these designs and move towards that which work best under the site conditions. Linking the four season greenhouse with rain or grey water systems offers the benefit of heat sink potential, and also the possibility of linking into a year-‐round aquaponics system, where the production of plants and fish could benefit from residual nutrients. 3.9 Compost, Compost Teas, Vermi-‐compost, Biochar & Holistic Preparations Literature on composting is quite extensive and as such an extensive discussion of its beauty and merit in conjunction with other soil amendments will not take place here. However, what is critical in terms of planning is to design and operate compost systems that produce stable, balanced compost, as not all compost is created equal. Proper compost must be prepared aerobically (anaerobic conditions invite too many detrimental bacteria), heaps must be inoculated with appropriate biological life, they must contain appropriate carbon to nitrogen ratios and be managed in such a way as to achieve temperature levels that can kill off pathogens, weed seeds, etc. Ultimately a good metric of good compost is the bacteria-‐fungi ratio and bio-‐diversity of the soil food web achieved in a finished heap. Finished compost should always smell good, be comprised of healthy crumbly, stable humus and not result in nutrient leaching when produced or applied. While there are some general guidelines in this regard, many of


which can be found in the Ontario Environmental Farm Plan Handbook, Clearwater Farm aims to go beyond the basic guidelines and experiment with a range of amendments and procedures. Michael Phillips, the highly acclaimed orchardist from the U.S. Northeast and author of Holistic Orcharding, has built on the concept of the soil food web and extended it up into the architecture of the orchard. Far beyond Integrated Pest Management (IPM), Phillips uses a range of practices and orchard design strategies that drive up biodiversity and boost the natural immunities of plants. This comprehensive approach to orchard health benefits from the application of good compost, compost teas and holistic sprays (applied as foliar sprays to both aerial parts and soil) made from compost and natural plant derivatives like kelp meal, neem oil, horsetail and nettle. He also uses plenty of mulch of various descriptions, in particular ramial wood chips, which drive the development of beneficial mycorrhizal fungi. Vermi-‐compost is another excellent way to take waste biomass and convert it to stable nutrient rich humus at next to no cost. The red wiggler is often the worm of choice and the beauty of such systems is that they can be scaled up or down to meet the needs of any operation. Chickens are also great for working compost piles and like worms their excrement, though not as stable as worm castings, do help add good biology to heaps, while the chickens also do a nice job of physically breaking up matters…while providing you with eggs! Biochar, an ancient technology of what is essentially charcoal produced at a high temperature in the absence of oxygen, is another organic soil conditioner that can have multiple benefits for the soil, including helping to meet Clearwater Farms primary agro-‐ecological objectives of improving soil health through regenerating the soil food web and creating soil structure that reduces nutrient leaching and improves moisture holding capacity.


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4.0 Education Programing Hands-‐on education opportunities and innovative demonstration and interpretive displays are built into every aspect of the Clearwater Farm program. As a farm, regional food-‐hub and educational centre, Clearwater presents a unique opportunity for the public to experience a ‘living agroecological laboratory’, which not only showcases best practices in agroecology and low-‐impact development, but allows visitors to actually get their hands dirty in the process. Within the context of agroecology, a complex transdisciplinary approach to sustainable agriculture, this phenomenological aspect of learning is critical as it prepares learners for their involvement in a complex and dynamic future. In fact, the literature suggests that phenomenon-‐based experiential education translates into deeper learning for both students and teachers and creates the kinds of transformative cultural shifts that will be imperative for creating a resilient future. Seminal works in this regard coming from the academic literature include the following:

• Francis, C. et al. (2011). Innovative Education in Agroecology: Experiential Learning for a Sustainable Agriculture.

• Ostergaard, E. et al. (2010). Students Learning Agroecology: Phenonmenon-‐Based Education for Responsible Action.

• Moncure, S. & C. Francis (2011). Foundations of Experiential Education as Applied to Agroecology.

• Lauzon, A. (2013). From Agricultural Extension to capacity development: exploring the foundations of an emergent form of practice.

• Sumner, J. (2003). Protecting and promoting indigenous knowledge: environmental adult education and organic agriculture.

Beyond the academy, this ethic of applied education in taking root in community colleges, working farms and environmental education centres around the world. Closer to home, programs such as the CRAFT, Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training, Everdale’s Future Farmers Curriculum, The Living Centre’s Permaculture Design Certificate, EFAO’s farmer-‐led Research, Mentorship and Advisory Network and the many programs offered by the FarmOn Alliance all highlight both the growth in the field of experiential agroecological learning and the shift towards on-‐farm action research. Clearwater is building relationships with these regional partners, and developing its own site specific education programing with an emphasis on water. In addition to the agroecological focus, the Clearwater site offers visitors a number of other opportunities to experience and appreciate the relationships between food, land, water and society. For example, the entire local food value chain will be flowing through the facility, from the production and handling aspects of food safety, to value-‐added processing, branding, marketing, sales and distribution. Along this line are huge opportunities for innovation and execution of best practices in water management,


nutrient recovery, energy conservation, nutrition, health and spiritual wellness. Through partnerships with local academic researchers, OMAFRA, OSCIA and other institutional and private partners, many of the leading technologies and design elements will be brought to bear at the Reed Farm site. Furthermore, Clearwater’s partnership with the Georgina Island First Nation in particular provides a unique intersection of different cultural histories and perspectives on food, land, water and society, which can be culturally transformative and hopefully regenerative and reconciliatory.


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5.0 Evaluation Program Disentangling the complex impacts, outputs and outcomes from a multifaceted project like a community farm and regional food hub takes serious brains. It also takes a systems approach to ‘see’ the entire system and build reliable methods to capture all that is going on. Food systems scholars have cultivated many such ‘holistic approaches’ to evaluation, among them being Meter’s Evaluating Farms and Food Systems (2006) and Miewald’s Community Food System Assessment (2009). A recent piece of work from the University of Guelph, Evaluating Community Food Hubs: A Practical Guide (2015), also offers a very uncomplicated perspective on this evaluation work as a whole. Many of these guides do an excellent job of accounting for the multiple perspectives and outcomes from community food hubs, but many are arguably weak in the ecological metrics that relate to soil and water. Clearwater Farm’s evaluation program, together with its network of partners, appears to be capable of plugging these holes. Setting aside for now the importance of process evaluation in addressing how well an organization/operation is being run and managed, and irrespective of the important question how will evaluation be utilized and integrated into an operation, this section addresses the proposed evaluation structure for Clearwater Farm’s agroecological elements. In doing so, an attempt is made to disentangle some of the socio-‐economic, spiritual and cultural goals-‐objectives-‐outputs-‐outcomes to focus more on the agroecological side. Borrowing from the aforementioned Practical Guide, we can extrapolate some of the following low-‐hanging fruit from the evaluation status quo as worthy considerations for inclusion in Clearwater Farm’s Evaluation Plan: Increased biodiversity

• Number of crops (and varieties) grown on site • Number of plant and animal species identified on site • Number of new species (plant and animal) identified on site • Number of tree species planted (and number of trees)

Increasing use of cover crops

• Amount of land dedicated to cover crops (tracking changes over time) • Knowledge regarding effective cover crop use

Improved soil quality

• soil pH • percentage of organic matter • micronutrient presence • etc!?!


This set of metrics would be a bare minimum because they offer few advanced ecological metrics. Most of the above could be counted on site, with some laboratory work required for the soil nutrient measures. The Clearwater Farm evaluation plan does call for the establishment of thorough ecological baselines, which is an important starting point for any evaluation project, including biological and soil health inventories. Notably absent from the Practical Guide are mention of two critical pieces to the Clearwater plan, namely microscopic analysis of soil biology (aka soil food web) and any measures, either remote imaging or localized soil probes, to relate ground water or soil moisture levels. It is here that the Clearwater Team will be looking to build out on the status quo and drive innovation in evaluation. As the foundation of this proposal is soil, and indeed so is the foundation of life, Clearwater looks to develop a robust evaluation program that address all flora and fauna in the soil food web. New research into microbial interactions in the rhyzosphere from Elaine Ingham at the Rodale Institute has really accelerated the advancement of and application of knowledge on soils. The tried and tested Soil Food Web analysis measures how soil-‐plant interactions happen and why soil life, from the tiniest bacteria to the most expansive fungi, are essential for all things that grow:

There are many ways that the soil food web is an integral part of landscape processes. Soil organisms decompose organic compounds, including manure, plant residue, and pesticides, preventing them from entering water and becoming pollutants. They sequester nitrogen and other nutrients that might otherwise enter groundwater, and they fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, making it available to plants. Many organisms enhance soil aggregation and porosity, thus increasing infiltration and reducing runoff. Soil organisms prey on crop pests and are food for aboveground animals. (Ingham, Soil Food Web. USDA/NRCS)

We now know beyond a doubt, that if land stewardship and agricultural practice does not attempt to encourage and foster this web, no claim can be made of ‘best practice’. However, in this, the FAO International Year of Soil, the Clearwater Farm proposal builds on the ideal of rich soil biodiversity, flora, fauna and all, and suggests that sustainable, productive agriculture can both be driven by improved soil biology and measured as such as well. To this end, in addition to establishing a strong set of traditional baseline soil health indicators, Clearwater proposes adopting a strong emphasis on monitoring and measures the soil food web, which we know can now be done with the help of microscopic soil analysis by a trained operator measured against established bench marks for any given climate, season, cropping systems and soil type. The second area that Clearwater Farm and their partners are looking to build out from the status quo of agro-‐ecological evaluation and practice relates to the emerging use of drone technology to consistently and accurately measure aspects of plant health and in


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particular soil moisture. Clearwater Farm is building a number of partnerships with leading researchers in this field in the hopes of creating a broad and deep capacity to use drone mounted camera technology. The objective will be to collect remote data and combine it with ground source data and ultimately build real time monitoring capability, which can be adapted to different needs and scales of analysis. In the context of the Clearwater Farm site, which will serve as a keystone in the metrics and evaluation research consortium, there exists a unique opportunity for comparative evaluation. The idea is to use this technology to measure outcomes from the initial 8 acres site on which regenerative agro-‐ecological systems will be put in place and to contrast that with the adjacent 22 acres that will be maintained using conventional cash-‐cropping techniques for the initial 5 year period. It is hypothesised that the pictures that will emerge from this comparative research will present a stark contrast in the ability of the two parcels respective abilities to hold water. Based on the improvements forecasted on the 8-‐acre site in terms of soil organic matter, soil biology, topsoil depth and net primary productivity. Use of satellite imagery and aerial photos, soil probes, bore hole monitoring and CEC calculations may supplement the data derived from the remote drone-‐mounted camera work and subsequent visualizations, but the theory is that the drone technology will present a much more accurate, reliable and economic means of data collection. Should this evaluation innovation prove successful, the ability to expand this type of monitoring and evaluation system, both to additional properties and landowners, but also to the regional and watershed scale, presents an exciting range of possibilities.


6.0 Conclusions Clearwater Farm is an idea steeped in water, a primal element that runs through all ecological systems that support life on earth. Like the mycorrhizal that will one day run extensively through the soil, connecting living plants with the nutrient parent materials in the rhizosphere, Clearwater Farm has the potential to be connecting tissue in the local community. But from an agroecological standpoint, the farm plan is designed from the soil out, using an innovative suite of inter-‐connected design elements to create a highly functional whole that nurtures soil, filters clean water and retains nutrients in a manner that conventional systems can not match. Furthermore, by removing many of the negative externalities associated with high input conventional systems, those that make extensive use of petro-‐chemical fertilizers, chemical herbicides and mechanical cultivation and result in phosphate run-‐off, soil erosion and global warming gases, regenerative farm systems like the design for Clearwater present an ideal and attainable alternative future. However, challenges in regenerative farming are also a practical reality. Up front costs for design and installation of perennial polyculture systems would typically be more time and money than an annual grain field crop rotation. However, because regenerative systems are designed for the long term, such permanent-‐agriculture systems require commitment from landowners and/or community-‐based organizations like OWC/Clearwater, to support, manage and maintain them over time. Short-‐term leasehold arrangements, a common reality for many conventional farmers, make such commitments more difficult to manage and therefore high land prices remain a fundamental stumbling block for many committed agroecologists. Clearwater Farm is again proposing to help fill this gap by offering participatory learning opportunities all over the farm to help beginner farmers begin their journey in regenerative farming. The knowledge base required to work with a great diversity of plants, animals and other interconnected elements in a polyculture is likewise significantly greater than with a monoculture. Because regenerative farming is based also based on organic principals, working within the ebbs and flows of natural systems takes on a whole new meaning compared to conventional systems that try and reduce nature’s influence and control or eliminate system variables. Crop losses can happen, but in diverse systems they are often less widespread and the system as a whole more resilient than conventional monocultures. Energy return on energy invested may in the short-‐term favour simple monocultures, but in the long run a diverse multifunctional regenerative farm design will create increasing return on investment, better energy return on investment and stable long term yields. Clearwater Farm has a very progressive, but also very realistic agroecological system plan. It contains an overall emphasis on retaining, filtering and monitoring water on the landscape by building soil and other features that will assist in replenishing nutrients,


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organic matter, flora and fauna. From this resilient agroecological base farm yields will flow sustainably over time while the site simultaneously acts amongst a network of farm education, demonstration, evaluation and research programs. The local community will see immediate gains from the cultural, economic and environmental outputs of the property. Landowners, large and small, urban and rural, will have visited the site and adopted new ideas in ecological agriculture, low impact development and water-‐wise landscape design. Clearwater Farm will become a hub for a critical cultural transition and a place to appreciate the multiple roles that water plays in our lives.


7.0 Glossary of Key Terms Agroecology – Nomenclature for an approach to farming that began with an emphasis on soil health, and remains that to this day. Overtime the terminology has begun to be inclusive of a wider range of ecosystem functions, going beyond the soil to include field level interactions amongst elements of a polyculture, farmscape design decisions affecting water, agroforestry-‐animal husbandry system integration, recycling of nutrients flows and attention to society scale system outcomes and minimization of externalities. Conventional Farming – Farming systems are rarely if ever black and while and as such these days there really is no such thing as a conventional farm. What there is are a whole swath of farms in the middle, whom are trying to incorporate best practices, but are limited in their abilities to integrate agroecological approaches due to lack of time, money, energy or other practical matters. Keyline – System of landscape design intended to maximize water storage, moisture retention and soil health. Through a series of design features, beginning with a topographical survey to determine contours and keypoints a series of deep narrow trenches are plowed into the landscape intended to move water from wet valleys towards dry ridges. This simple gravity fed water management design can also link a series of overflow ponds to the keyline plowed landscape, evenly distributiong water to maximize primary productivity on the landscape. Counter-‐intuitive to the tile drained landscape, keyline is optimized under conditons that also emphasize robust soil food webs and deep-‐rooted perennial polycultures that more capably take up excess water during wet seasons and stress-‐less during dry seasons. Permaculture – Nomenclature developed by Australians Mollison and Holmgren to describe an agricultural system of permanent abundance, hi-‐interconnectivity and multi-‐functionality. Often mimicking natural systems, and thoughtfully laid out to maximize on-‐farm efficiency, sustainability and self-‐renewing fertility, such systems are as varied as the imaginations of their creators but should demonstrate practical value and realizable yields for both humans and ecosystems. Regenerative Farming – Discussed in theory by scholars for many decades, including the works of Dahlberg and others, regenerative farming is enjoying a bump in popularity among alternative agriculture circles thanks to the work of Wisconsin-‐based farmer-‐educator Mark Sheppard. Based on keyline, permaculture and agroforestry and other traditions, the basis is again building soil health through maximizing water moisture and nutrient cycling within the landscape by integrating perennial polycultures, pastured livestock and annuals in appropriate contexts. The means being open to creativity while the ends being determined successful if, across a range of measures, previously degraded landscapes can be transformed back to healthful, sustainable productivity.


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Natural Farming – A collection of methodologies, cum overarching philosophy developed by Masanobu Fukuoka of Japan. A combination of water-‐rise inter-‐sew annual grain production combined with wildly diverse mixed orchards and edible forest gardens, Fukuoka’s wildcrafting methods were also based on some degree of bio mimicry as well as more scientific approaches in agroecology. Holistic Orcharding – A consistent biological approach to organic orcharding developed by American Michael Phillips. Rather than chemical sprays and reactionary treatments, an organic foliar spray program is designed to build adaptive capacity in the orchard ecosystem combined with permaculture style polyculture guilds of symbiotic plants, including prolific bio-‐accumulators. Agroforestry – almost any attempt to bring woody plants back into the agricultural landscape could be considered agroforestry. Variants would include silo-‐pasture, alley cropping, edible forest gardens, forested animal husbandry, coppice agroforestry, wild crafting and other permaculture designs. Multifunctionality – Design outcome from agroecological farm systems that see multiple potentials from each design element or decision. Multifunctional landscapes have total net yields from all cumulative functions much higher than total yields from monoculture systems. Social, ecological, economic, cultural, recreational, caloric/nutritional and spiritual planes are among the critical dimensions of perspective in the design, implementation and evaluation of such systems. Soil Food Web – The basis of healthy soil, healthy crops and healthy humans. Soil food web extends from microscopic bacteria, expansive fungi, and predator –prey relationships extending right up out of the soil. The soil food webs main role in the soil is to participate in symbiotic relationship with the plants to ensure maximum efficiency in pumping nutrients from parent material to plants while building soil structure and organic matter that help to hold water and oxygen in the soil.


Integrating multiple perspectives on ecology and society allows an agroecologist to honour and include soil science, field ecology, landscape ecology and global ecologies

into a system designed to maximize soil and water health across the spectrum.


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