Adrian Op’thoog and children on their farm near Feversham.
As an Ontario Nature intern this past summer, I had the opportunity to visit farmers in the ALUS Ontario community of Grey-Bruce, one of four such communities in Ontario. ALUS is short for Alternative Land Use Services, which is a community-developed, farmer-delivered program that supports the enhancement and maintenance of nature’s benefits on farms. It was an unseasonably chilly day in August when Josh Wise, Greenway Program coordinator, and I headed up to the picturesque Grey-Bruce area, but the welcome we received from ALUS staff and farmers was anything but.
Our day began at the farm of Brenda Hsueh, a small scale CSA (community supported agriculture) operation near Chesley. Here vegetables grow row upon row, soon to be filling the bellies of happy customers in nearby towns and cities. A handful of livestock also live on Brenda’s farm.
One of farmer Brenda Hsueh’s sheep.
With ALUS support, Brenda is returning about five acres of her land into a wetland. This natural feature will benefit her farm and the broader environment. It will store and filter runoff and create wildlife habitat.
After saying good-bye to Brenda, we visited Adrian Op’thoog on his farm near Feversham. Adrian runs a large-scale broiler breeder chicken operation, among other things. Adrian has implemented measures to reduce his farm’s ecological footprint, including rooftop solar panels on a few farm buildings. With ALUS support, he will soon plant a trees and shrubs along the edge of the river running through his property. This vegetation will slow down and purify water as it travels from farm fields to the river. It will also reduce topsoil erosion, provide habitat for local wildlife and sequester carbon.
I would like to thank Brenda and Adrian for showing us around their farms and talking about their involvement with ALUS. It was a great opportunity to visit this young ALUS community and see how ALUS works with farms of all types and sizes. I would also like to thank Keith Reid, project coordinator for ALUS Ontario Grey-Bruce, and Ray Robertson, president of Grey Agricultural Services Centre, for their hospitality.
The partnership of farmers and conservationists appears to have a bright future In Grey-Bruce.
Lindsay Barden is a student of the Environmental Visual Communication Program, jointly offered by Fleming College and the Royal Ontario Museum. She was a communications intern at Ontario Nature during the summer of 2014.