New farming practices to fight climate change

PRINCE GEORGE – A local farm has joined forces with the Forage Council of BC to look at ways to stave off the effects of climate change.

“I’m trying to bring up my organic matter and to build soil,” explains Blake Goddard of Goddard’s Farm and Market. “That’s ideally what my farm is, soil and microbes. If I can get them going and firing together and I have this cover over the ground, it will stop the drying out and hopefully retain water longer and allow things to grow as we get through these hotter and hotter summers.”

So rather than tilling the soil and then planting, he is digging shallow trenches with a special piece of equipment and planting different kinds of cover crops, such as radishes and vetch. That will help to loosen the clay soil while adding nutrients.

He has the support of the Forage Council of BC, which is tapping into some funding from the Province’s Climate Change Initiative. Serena Black has four farms, including Goddard’s, doing different projects all with the same goal in mind: Rejuvenating the land to better withstand the impacts of climate change.