GLENLEA, Man. – It’s not easy being sort of green. That’s what the promoters of Pesticide Free Production have found as they’ve developed their system.
They don’t get big bucks from the chemical industry because their system is designed to marginalize it. They also don’t get a lot of support from provincial governments, even though those governments promote organic farming.
“It just shows how governments are followers and not leaders,” said researcher Martin Entz of the University of Manitoba.
“There’s been a general lack of interest in this concept from most governments.”
Read Also
Green lentil market oversupplied
Farmers in Western Canada can expect price pressure on their new crop of green lentils, as the available supplies among the world’s major lentil-growing nations increase significantly.
Pesticide Free Production is a trademarked term controlled by a farmers’ co-operative and driven by researchers from the U of M.
It brings together the main elements of both zero-till and organic farming. Farmers using the system apply a preseeding burnoff of glyphosate, then seed and grow their crop using no further synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.
Unlike most organic farming, PFP does not turn the soil to control weeds.
Entz and his fellow researchers think it is a sensible system that can reduce farmers’ production costs and financial exposure, while producing enough grain to keep financially viable.
But it’s been a hard sell to two of the prairie provincial governments, which have shown little interest, Entz said.
“The exception is Alberta,” he said.
“They’re very keen and very dedicated to the concept. They see it as a value-added strategy. But I wish the other governments (Manitoba and Saskatchewan) would get more serious about even understanding it as a concept.”
Researchers on the project have faced big hurdles and there are more to come.
First, they had to learn how to grow crops without the use of either in-crop chemicals or extensive tillage. Glyphosate offered effective preseeding weed control, but controlling in-crop weeds has involved extensive study of various crop rotations, seeding times and other management.
They’ve developed a system proven by a number of farmers, but it’s a compromise between chemical-based and organic weed control that hasn’t always been accepted by advocates of the other approaches.
Entz suspects some provincial authorities don’t like the system because it suggests something is wrong with using chemicals on crops. As well, organic labelling regulations have stopped the group from marketing its products as pesticide free.
About a year ago the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said promoters could not claim the products of this system are pesticide free because they apply glyphosate before seeding.
Developers haven’t given up and believe they’re on the edge of resolving the labelling issue, Entz said.
The PFP logo may still be usable, he said, by including a website address that explains what it means for products. Or the term could be modified to products grown using fewer pesticides.
“I think we’ve worked our way through that now,” said Entz.
The system’s promoters take a non-ideological approach to pesticides and fertilizers. Their focus is on cutting the financial exposure farmers face each year when they seed and manage a crop.
“Total elimination of synthetic chemicals in agriculture is probably not a good idea,” said Entz, noting nitrogen fertilizers produce enough food for 1.5 billion of the world’s people.
Their goal is to reduce chemical use, while maintaining the zero-till system that can only work in conjunction with a chemical like glyphosate.
