IFOAM’s Organic World Congress in Taiwan Katie Fettes In early December 2024, I joined hundreds of farmers, researchers, policymakers, and advocates at the 21st IFOAM Organic World Congress (OWC) in Taiwan. It was a week of inspiring conversations, knowledge exchange, and powerful grounding in the transformative potential of organic agriculture to address global challenges. The… Keep Reading
Eva-Lena Lang In the fall of 2024, I had the privilege of accompanying University of British Columbia (UBC) researchers on a two-week field visit to Germany and India. With a focus on agroecology and organic practices, we built relationships with research partners, community organizations, farmers, and farmer communities and gained insights into how farmers can… Keep Reading
The Miracle Place Darcy Smith From one Kalala to another, Karnail Sidhu crossed continents and decades to bring Kalala Organic Estate Winery to life. The winery’s name honours the village in Punjab, India, where he was born. Kalala means “miracle place,” says Karnail. “My birthplace has a little legend about how it got its name.… Keep Reading
Anna Helmer The sunny weather is persisting, but the shortening days are denying the heat a chance to build beyond a most pleasant warmth. Even the drought, which is also persisting, has its work cut out for it now that the morning dew is so heavy. We are gunning hard to get through these last… Keep Reading
Chris Bodnar When parts of the province experienced catastrophic flooding in November of 2021, we witnessed an incredible mobilization of resources in the agricultural sector to navigate the disaster as well as to rebuild. At the same time, we also witnessed the unequal impact of the event on different populations. Very few Indigenous communities are… Keep Reading
Susanna Klassen I have a confession: I live beside an amazing organic farm, and I buy imported organic vegetables. Not all the time! My partner and I are members of our neighbour’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program (it’s the best), we grow some vegetables on our own burgeoning little farm, and we go to the… Keep Reading
Marie-Eve Levert “During my first encounter with an organic farmer, he told me that every time he walked through his fields, it didn’t feel like work. He saw so much wildlife—birds, deer, butterflies, insects—that it was like being in a park. His job, as he saw it, was to sustain the ecosystems around him.” For… Keep Reading
International Collaboration Towards Climate Resilience Valerie Zimmermann The Agroecological Transitions for Climate Resilience in British Columbia (BC) research project is working to support BC farmers and the BC farming industry to improve resilience to the impacts of climate change and extreme weather. Climate resilience in farming involves not only producing food for the province, but… Keep Reading
Meet the Middle Man in Your Beer Darcy Smith As varied and innovative as craft beer has become over the last decades, it ultimately still comes down to four main ingredients: water, hops, yeast, and, of course, malt—I had never really thought much about malt until I found myself peppering Ken Smith of Gambrinus Malting… Keep Reading
Anna Helmer I guess everyone knows the main claim to fame of a perfectly-run Biodynamic farm is that it is a closed loop system. Everything needed by the farm is produced within the farm. Going outside the gate, especially for fertility, indicates a problem with farm health. Biodynamics, and particularly the preparations, are intended to… Keep Reading
