The assessment by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, three years in the making and signed off by more than 150 governments, is expected to guide policymaking across multiple sectors.

WHY IT MATTERS: Construction, food, pharmaceuticals and infrastructure are among the sectors most exposed to biodiversity loss, research firm Zero Carbon Analytics said, though most companies face risks through their supply chains.

Written by 79 experts worldwide, the report pointed to “inadequate or perverse” incentives, weak institutional support and enforcement, and “significant” data gaps as key obstacles to progress.

It builds on a 2024 pledge by countries to protect 30 per cent of land and sea by 2030, followed last year by a plan to spend US$200 billion on the effort – still far short of the finance flowing into activities that damage nature.

‘Blind spot’

Despite the need for “transformative change,” US$7.3 trillion in public and private funds was going to nature-harming activities, the authors said, citing 2023 data.

“This Report draws on thousands of sources, bringing together years of research and practice into a single integrated framework that shows both the risks of nature loss to business, and the opportunities for business to help reverse this,” said Matt Jones (UK), one of three co-chairs of the assessment.

“Businesses and other key actors can either lead the way towards a more sustainable global economy or ultimately risk extinction … both of species in nature, but potentially also their own.”

The report said companies can act now by setting ambitious targets and embedding them in corporate strategy; strengthening auditing, monitoring and performance assessments; and innovating in products, processes and services.

Fewer than one per cent of public companies disclose biodiversity impacts, it added.

Construction, food, pharmaceuticals and infrastructure are among the sectors most exposed to biodiversity loss, research firm Zero Carbon Analytics said, though most companies face risks through their supply chains.

Paul Polman, the former boss of consumer goods company Unilever, said business strategy was about managing risk and building resilience, yet nature “has barely featured in that equation”.

“The IPBES assessment shows that this blind spot is now becoming one of the defining economic risks of our time.”

The post Biodiversity loss a risk to global economy, IPBES report says appeared first on Farmtario.

Why it matters: The award recognizes producers who successfully apply solutions to reduce environmental risks to soil, water, air or biodiversity on farms.

Open to Ontario farmers and agricultural businesses that demonstrate outstanding innovation and ingenuity in navigating environmental challenges, submissions will be evaluated based on originality, adaptability, environmental effectiveness, cost-efficiency, and safety. Entrants must have a verified Environmental Farm Plan within the last five years.

The award, supported by Ruth Hill and family, honours Don Hill, past OSCIA president and former soils and crops specialist. Hill was an advocate for Ontario’s Environmental Farm Plan, dedicated to sustainable farming practices and sharing practical, creative solutions to environmental challenges farmers could put into practice.

Submissions will be open until Jan. 1, 2026, with the winner being announced at OSCIA’s annual general meeting on Feb. 3, 2026.

More information on the award and submitting an entry can be found at ontariosoilcrop.org/oscia-don-hill-legacy-award.

The post Don Hill Legacy Award open for submissions appeared first on Farmtario.

The increase from the provincial and federal governments’ Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership is part of a five-year investment strategy ending in 2028.

Why it matters: The investment provides farmers with financial support and tools to build long-term resiliency in the land and farm operations.

RALP’s Marginal Lands Initiative (MLI), delivered by Conservation Ontario, will receive an additional $9.6 million on top of the existing $12 million in funding over four years.

The second intake for MLI opens on Sept. 22, 2025, for projects that enhance natural features, such as wetlands or pollinator habitats, reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions, sequester carbon, and increase ecosystem goods and services.

Eligible projects could encompass:

Strip-planting perennial cover to create grassed waterways or manage in-field salinity.

Converting marginal or high-risk annual cropland to permanent grassland or perennial biomass crops, including establishing native or tame forages.

Wetland restoration, construction of new wetlands, or creating/widening buffers in agricultural fields adjacent to surface water sources, to protect existing riparian areas

Establishing shelterbelts for farmyards, livestock facilities, fields or intercropping with trees, including planting trees or shrubs on marginal or high-risk cropland.

“Together, we’re helping farmers across the province take on environmental projects that support their farms and protect their land – both important for Ontario’s future and economy,” said Dave Barton, Conservation Ontario chair and Uxbridge mayor, in a statement.

Angela Copeland, Conservation Ontario’s general manager, stated in an email that the funding increase will be allocated based on the program’s requests and the merits of each intake submission until the program concludes in 2028.

The Ontario Agricultural Sustainability Initiative, delivered by the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association, was recently granted an additional $5 million in funding to help producers with costs for planting grasslands and trees, reducing tillage, and constructing water retention features until 2028. The Initiative’s RALP intake remains open.

The post Canada and Ontario invest $14.6M to boost farmland resiliency and sustainability appeared first on Farmtario.

The funding was announced at the Ontario Forage Expo near Paisley June 26. The forage expo was put on by the Ontario Forage Council which will administer the community pastures program.

Why it matters: Community pastures play an important role in allowing farmers to work together to have efficiency feed for their cattle.

Funded through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP), the Community Pastures Initiative will provide funding to eligible projects that adopt technology and best management practices to improve land quality, enhance biodiversity and improve soil health over the long term, helping farmers stay competitive and resilient amid economic uncertainties. Sustainable CAP is funded by the federal and provincial governments.

“Through this program, natural features best management practices will be designed, constructed and maintained at participating pastures,” said Paul Vickers, MPP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound and parlimentary secretary to the minister of agriculture. He announced the program at the forage expo.

Selected projects could receive up to 100 per cent of eligible costs for designing, constructing, and maintaining rotational grazing systems, resilient perennial forage crop improvements, establishing permanent grassland, including forage, adding riparian, and pollinator buffers and habitats, as well as integrated tree, forage, and livestock grazing systems, wetlands, water retention and runoff control.

The Bruce County community pasture, not far from the forage expo near Underwood has been in operation for 60 years, said Don Hargrave, chair of the Ontario Association of Community Pastures during the announcement. He said the funding would help the 11 community pastures across the province. A 12th is in the process of being created in Lambton County.
“Ontario’s shared community pastures and grazing lands are essential resources in our agricultural landscape and play a vital role in building a stronger cattle and agri-food sector,” said Trevor Jones, Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness, in a release.

The Ontario Forage Council will administer the program and work with the Association of Community Pastures and support the co-development of eligible projects. For a complete list of eligible projects, information, and application details, contact the Ontario Forage Council or visit their website.

The post Province invests in community grazing pastures appeared first on Farmtario.

Why it matters: The federal government’s climate change mitigation strategy encourages the conversion of farmland to hay and pasture but this Ontario study shows a trend in the opposite direction.

Research conducted by the Canadian Wildlife Federation, aimed at highlighting the “threatened” status of the Eastern Meadowlark on Ontario’s Species at Risk list, draws on Census of Agriculture data and land-cover analysis from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, overlaid with avian population estimates from the Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas organization.

“The Census of Agriculture has been reported by producers every five years since 1896,” said Canadian Wildlife Federation staff researcher Vince Fyson, who is part of a three-member team who wrote the report.

“These data show a clear signal in loss of perennial land and increase in annual cropland.”

But in 2009, AAFC “improved the precision of land use data by creating a digital annual crop inventory. This has allowed us to explore land use change at a much finer scale,” added Fyson.

In addition, “remotely sensed data has improved drastically over the past decades (to the degree that) we now have access to frequently updated, high resolution, and reliable land use data for the entirety of southern Ontario and Quebec.”

The team’s analysis of 2011-22 data from Canada’s Mixedwood Plains ecozone is conclusive: “The total agricultural land area changed little over the study period, but the area of pasture and forage decreased while row crop area increased,” said the report, published in the science journal Facet.

“Declines in Eastern Meadowlark abundance correlated significantly … suggesting that habitat availability (in the form of pastureland) is a limiting factor for this species.”

Fyson said the ready availability of data about the Eastern Meadowlark led to the decision to use that bird as the species with which to link the land-cover research. On the provincial government’s Species at Risk website, the “threatened” status is defined as “liv(ing) in the wild in Ontario, is not endangered, but is likely to become endangered if steps are not taken to address factors threatening it.”

“The recent State of Canada’s Birds report from Birds Canada indicates that grassland birds are experiencing a steep rate of decline,” Fyson told Farmtario in an email.

“These birds are ground nesters in grasslands, and pasture and hay lands in the Mixedwood Plains Ecozone have provided good nesting habitat… . We were curious to see the extent of the loss of this habitat and found that there has been a loss of more than 25 per cent between 2011 and 2022.”

“The lack of remaining native habitat in the ecozone means Eastern Meadowlarks face regional extirpation if suitable farmland habitat is not conserved or grassland habitat restored,” the Facets article adds.

The Mixedwood Plains Ecozone encompasses all of southern Ontario along lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario, and north and south of the St. Lawrence River through southern Quebec. Agriculture represents 55 per cent of the land area. The ecozone contains 34 per cent of Canada’s farms and 14 per cent of Canada’s farmland.

In 2021, there were also approximately 20.1 million people living in the ecozone, an increase of 10.4 per cent compared to 2011. Analysis of the land-cover data to estimate habitat loss due to human settlement didn’t paint as dire a picture in terms of the year-by-year loss of total agricultural land.

Farmland is being lost, the study said, but other types of land cover are also being turned into farmland in the province.

“The loss of agricultural lands to urbanization was partly offset by the conversion of forests and wetlands (to farmland); however, the farmland gained was of lesser agricultural quality than the farmland lost.”

The team’s analysis of the 2011-22 land-cover data is revealing in several ways.

The study found that more than 160,000 acres of agriculture land were converted to urban, primarily in the Greater Toronto Area. A net loss of over 37,000 acres of forest to agriculture was seen, with a hot spot of deforestation for agriculture east of the Rideau River system. Over 13,000 acres of wetlands were converted to agriculture with a hot spot in the County of Dufferin.

But “the total area of agriculture remained virtually unchanged over the study period,” the article notes, and from the list of possible transformations, it’s hay/pasture-to-row crop that stands out most.

A ratio of 8.4 million acres of annual crops to 420,000 acres of pasture/forage in 2011 changed to 9.5 million acres of row crops and 314,000 acres of pasture/forage in 2022.

“The conversion of pasture/forage to annual crops was the largest land cover change that we observed,” the article said. The most significant transformation occurred “along the edge of the Canadian Shield.”

The analysis also revealed average farm field size increased across the ecoregion from 2011-22. Although the study’s authors cited prior research pointing to decreased biodiversity as fields get bigger, field size was not a part of the study.

“We have ideas for research that would help producers to better understand how natural cover can help the climate resiliency of their farms,” Fyson said.

He added the wildlife federation research team “would like to see the province of Ontario and municipalities recognize farmland as important to society,” and calls on “governments at the municipal, provincial and federal level (to) develop policies that consider the impacts of land changes on agricultural production, climate change resiliency and biodiversity.”

Fyson argued the financial burden of putting such policies into action shouldn’t fall on farmers.

“We understand that producers need to make a living and make land use decisions according to market signals and other factors.” Instead, “we view that the retention of natural habitats on farms is a public good, and producers should be rewarded for this.”

The post Study ties hay/pasture conversion to biodiversity loss appeared first on Farmtario.

But according to an article published by the journal Nature in September, that has come at the expense of environmental stability, making it more difficult to sustain high productivity.

Why it matters: Biodiversity loss negatively affects farming systems over time. Experts say improving biodiversity would make agricultural systems more resilient and potentially less expensive for farmers.

The authors say future agricultural systems must account for this trade-off and address humans’ historical tendency to prioritize production above all else.

The article, “The productivity-stability trade-off in global food systems”, analyzes a wide breadth of humans’ historical management of food systems, and how changes in management affected the size and diversity of organisms in land and aquatic environments.

It then looks at how food webs — all the food chains in a single ecosystem — changed as a result. With the addition of results from a swath of large-scale ecological studies, the authors conclude the drive for production has led to the homogenization of landscapes, and caused greater fluctuation within food webs that threaten the environmental stability that supports high agricultural production.

Marie Gutgesell, a post-doctoral researcher working with Alaska’s Forest Service, contributed to the article while studying how agriculture influences food webs during her time at the University of Guelph.

The article’s take-away message, she says, is that environmental heterogeneity has to be considered in the pursuit of future production systems. She says there is need to think in terms of systems, rather than linear solutions and individual production challenges.

“Let’s say a common issue that might be increasingly frequent is more drought conditions. Traditionally, crops might be irrigated more. That’s a cost to the farmer. But if you can restore the capacity for soils to hold more water with perennial crops, or adjacent land that can capture more water, then it might reduce the amount of irrigation input that you might have to use,” says Gutgesell.

“Are there ways that could be mutually beneficial, where you can buffer your production against environmental vulnerability? The [article] isn’t a call to say not to produce as much food. But on a larger landscape scale, how do we mitigate that stability loss?

“This doesn’t have to involve giant changes to have a significant impact. Is there a portion of a property that can be repurposed? You get more people to do that, then it starts to have an impact at the larger landscape scale.”

Recognizing the problem

For Kevin McCann, another contributing author and professor in the University of Guelph’s integrative biology department, the article is part of a wider conversation about biodiversity and resilience “around and on the field,” and a recognition that large-scale conventional farming systems do have significant cascading effects across ecosystems.

“When you homogenize a landscape, you basically change the structure that nature is operating around. What we do in farming, it creates one energy pathway for a food web. In natural systems, that’s not how it goes,” says McCann.

“What we’re really doing in our drive to maximize productivity, we’ve driven this massive instability in the system that exists on the field and adjacent to the field. And a similar thing in fisheries as well … Over decades, suddenly you’re in a position where you’re throwing on a ton of pesticides and fertilizer to maintain the system. That’s the cost of instability.

“We’ve got to think about this as nature being a really highly connected system. What we do on the fields ends up in lakes and oceans. An action 100 kilometres away can cause a dead zone in Lake Erie.”

Some of the article’s conclusions may seem obvious – the idea that farming indeed affects natural ecosystems, for example. However, Gutgesell and McCann argue landscape-level thinking is still not reflected in the way many people, organizations and governments think about environmental problems.

Part of the challenge from McCann’s perspective is people interested in making environmental gains – improving water quality, for example – don’t readily communicate with agriculture or fishery ministries, agriculture groups, and others whose input is vital for developing an effective strategic plan to address the issue in question.

The slow pace of environmental degradation also makes biodiversity loss hard to see in real time, so it is challenging to convince people there is a real problem.

However, McCann reiterates that a critical first step is recognizing that biodiversity loss is real. If biodiversity improvements are pursued strategically, and on a landscape-scale, farmers would also see production benefits.

The post Drive for production weakens resilience of farming systems: study appeared first on Farmtario.

Among several other changes, a planned new package of federal regulatory amendments will put a gradual end to a “pause” imposed in August 2021 on such proposed MRL increases, which are overseen by Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA).

Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced the planned amendments Tuesday, in what are billed as Canada’s “next steps toward a sustainable approach to pesticides management, while giving farmers the tools they need to keep providing reliable access to safe and nutritious food.”

The term “MRL” refers to the highest legally allowed amount of pesticide residue that may remain on or in food when a pesticide is used according to label directions. Different MRLs are set for different combinations of chemicals and foods, depending on how a pesticide is applied for a given crop.

Ottawa’s 2021 pause had been imposed in response to public concerns specifically regarding a boost to MRLs for glyphosate herbicide, as was proposed in May that year for certain imported commodities.

That proposal, Bibeau said Wednesday in an interview, was meant to have brought Canada’s glyphosate MRLs in line with revisions laid out by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the body which oversees standards for foods traded internationally.

But for some, she said, the concept of MRLs is “really counter-intuitive, so it’s hard to explain to the public. When you say, ‘You know, we might be increasing that,’ the first reaction is that ‘Oh my God, we will increase pesticides on our cereal,’ which is not the case, which is not how it works, but intuitively, it was not well received.”

Bibeau said the government felt at the time that a pause, to better understand the existing process, was necessary, because PMRA was “functioning under a law that is quite old.”

Health Canada said Tuesday it’s “still reviewing the significant feedback from the public” in response to the proposed increase to MRLs for glyphosate, with the last comments received in April 2022.

Bibeau said the re-evaluation process for glyphosate MRLs won’t resume before 2024, while the pause on evaluations for other, “less complex” MRL proposals will be lifted more quickly.

For glyphosate, key studies on the matter are currently underway in the European Union and elsewhere, Bibeau said, and Canada wants to have access to that information before making its decision.

READ MORE: Canadian grain is safe: Chorney

Otherwise, Health Canada said Tuesday, “lifting the pause is important to allow people in Canada to maintain a reliable access to affordable and nutritious food, provide predictability for farmers to access the required tools to fight against new pests, and facilitate trade, which is central to support food security.”

Health Canada emphasized Tuesday that an MRL will only be increased if the department’s scientists determine it’s safe to do so.

Transparency

Ottawa’s proposed new regulatory amendments stem in part from consultations conducted last year during a “targeted review” of the federal Pest Control Products Act (PCPA).

Health Canada said Tuesday it found that “opening up the PCPA wasn’t necessary, as policy and regulatory initiatives are sufficient to achieve the goals” of the department’s agenda for the PMRA.

To that end, Health Canada on Tuesday filed a notice of intent for proposed amendments to the federal Pest Control Products Regulations, opening up a 60-day public comment period.

The amendments, as proposed, would aim to “increase transparency” for MRL applications for imported food products, and to “facilitate access” by the public to confidential test data (CTD) used in such decision-making, such as for research and re-analysis.

Up until the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Canada said, anyone wanting access to CTD would have to travel in person to Ottawa and apply for access to PMRA’s physical “reading room,” in which a person could review CTD under supervision and could only take notes, subject to PMRA also taking photocopies of those notes.

The government has to acknowledge that the public has an increased interest in these sorts of decisions, Bibeau said Wednesday, adding such methods of disclosure were “not really transparent.” Since the pandemic, access to inspect CTD has been granted remotely, using an encrypted USB key.

The amendments proposed Tuesday would further provide access to CTD “in a manner that would allow an individual to conduct their own data analysis” but while “maintaining the appropriate levels of protection against unfair commercial use of the data” as required by international treaties.

New regulations proposed in Health Canada’s notice of intent would also grant a federal health minister the “explicit authority to require submission of available information on cumulative environmental effects” of a pesticide, and require the minister to consider cumulative effects on the environment during risk assessments. They would also authorize the minister to require any available information on species-at-risk to be submitted during pesticide risk assessments.

Bibeau on Tuesday noted the federal government in 2021 put up $50 million for pest management research, both by PMRA and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, with support from Environment Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

That funding would go toward “independent” data-gathering on pesticide safety by PMRA, as well as research into alternative pest control products by AAFC, she said.

Cosmetic curb

The moves Ottawa announced Tuesday also stem in part from international commitments reached in Montreal last year during the Conference of Parties (COP15) on biological diversity, as per the participating countries’ adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

Specifically, Bibeau said Wednesday, Target 7 of the GBF calls for reducing the overall risk from pesticides to biodiversity by at least half by 2030 — and by that, she emphasized, “I want to insist, the risk, not the use” of pesticides.

Target 7 calls for reducing risk by 50 per cent means such as “integrated pest management, based on science, taking into account food security and livelihoods.”

To that end, Ottawa on Tuesday also announced what Bibeau described as a more “concrete” federal move — namely, a new ban on “cosmetic” or otherwise nonessential use of pesticides on federal lands, such as national parks and around federal buildings, except where needed to protect lands against a harmful infestation.

All that said, Bibeau emphasized Wednesday, “there is absolutely no change” directly affecting pesticide use by farmers in any of the new regulatory proposals announced Tuesday.

“Pesticides are part of the toolbox agricultural producers use to protect their crops from pests and contribute to their productivity,” she said in the government’s release Tuesday. “The measures announced by our government today help to ensure responsible access, framed by reliable data, to these essential inputs, while protecting health and the environment.”

It’s given, she said Wednesday, that when it comes to pesticide use, farmers are trained professionals who are concerned for the environment, incorporate integrated pest management practices and limit their crop chem use to what’s agronomically necessary.

Canada, Bibeau said, has always advocated for trade rules based on science and will lead by example.

“If we are asking other countries, our trading partners, to do trade based on science, we will keep making decisions based on science, but we have to provide more transparency to the public, and cut the risk where it’s not essential, like for cosmetic use.”

‘Conflicting messages’

But the organization representing Canada’s crop protection companies says the government’s proposals miss the mark.

CropLife Canada, in a separate statement, hailed Bibeau’s “strong statements in support of the importance of pesticides in food production and the need for these important tools to help bolster food security in Canada and around the world.”

However, CropLife said, the government plans to “only slowly begin to increase MRLs again where required, despite acknowledging that MRLs do not pose a safety concern and that they are critical to international trade and food security.”

The government’s new plan to ban cosmetic use of pesticides on federal lands also “runs in direct contradiction to its own risk-based approach to pesticide regulation,” CropLife said, noting PMRA “thoroughly assesses all pesticides” for safety.

“For Health Canada to deem pesticides safe and then turn around and ban them for so-called cosmetic purposes on their own lands sends conflicting messages to Canadians.”

Canada Grains Council president Erin Gowriluk, in a separate release, also hailed Bibeau’s recognition of the importance of pesticides to food production and security and of “the connection between crop protection and environmental sustainability.”

However, she said, by persisting with the “pause” on certain MRL approvals, “there is an increasing risk of Canada’s trading partners perceiving it as an intrusion of ideology into policymaking, contradicting our message to other countries.”

That, combined with the ban on cosmetic pesticide use on federal lands, has “the potential to undermine the government’s explicit recognition that pesticide uses in Canada undergo rigorous testing and assessment to ensure they are safe and pose no unacceptable risks to human health or the environment,” the council said. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Feds lift ‘pause’ on increases in crop chemical MRLs appeared first on Farmtario.

During a recent Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario webinar, Jim Jones, a British ecologist and hedge laying expert, explained how a managed hedgerow can fulfil several roles within agriculture.

Why it matters: Managed North American hedgerows could provide a biodiversity and ecological boost to areas with diminished woodland coverage.

“Hedgerows can create a landscape with a sense of place. That gives you a relationship to the land you wouldn’t otherwise get,” said Jones, who now calls Ontario home.

North American shelterbelts and windbreaks utilize deciduous trees with conifers on the outside to reduce wind effect. However, U.K. hedgerows are managed fence lines that provide ecological benefits and hold cultural significance.

“North American hedgerows tend to be the strips of vegetation that have remained within field boundaries, usually because fieldstone has been scraped to create a boundary and the woody species have grown up there,” he said.

“They’re the great habitats for wildlife, but they’re not really any use in terms of as a field (boundary) or livestock boundary.”

A managed hedgerow can play a massive role in biodiversity, said Jones, especially in regions with diminished woodland coverage, like southwestern Ontario. They can provide multi-species habitat and a microclimate from the grass boundary inward.

“When you’re starting to think about a new hedge row — doing it from scratch — you’ve got to ask yourself what it’s for, especially if (you’ve) had no concept of what a planted, managed hedgerow is all about,” Jones said. “You’ve got to think about what kind of function your hedgerow is going to perform.”

Coniferous trees are not ideal for hedgerows because they don’t respond well to coppicing, which is the process of cutting the tree at its base to promote rapid new growth. That is fundamental in hedgerow management, said Jones.

The backbone structure of a new hedgerow consists of 50 per cent of one species, like Ontario’s hawthorn, Osage orange or black acacia.

Hedgerow propagation doesn’t require ground preparation, although conditioning soil using turf stripping, plowing, spraying and use of landscape fabric helps. Transplants can be slot- or notch-planted into existing conditions, Jones said.

He likes a dense one-metre planting structure with five plants, ideally one or two-year-old whips, in two staggered rows 38 centimetres apart with 45 cm between each plant. Rabbit and deer guards are recommended.

“(Staggering) provides more structure as the hedgerow starts to grow. People are often surprised at how dense a hedgerow is planted, but once you come around to managing it, you see how important that is.”

Fit for Ontario

Although the availability of wood and barbed wire allowed North American farmers to drift away from labour-intensive hedgerow fencing, there was a resurgence in the 1840s and again in the 1930s to combat soil erosion during the dustbowl, mostly using Osage orange.

The thorny tree, which grows in Caledon but is threatened by the proposed Highway 413, is said to be “horse high, bull strong and pig tight,” making it an excellent base for Ontario hedgerow systems, said Jones.

The challenge lies in creating a cohesive list of species ideal for North American-managed hedgerows because European options aren’t necessarily viable.

To date, Jones has used American hazelnut, gray dogwood, chokeberry, nannyberry, arrowwood, serviceberry, black chokeberry and fragrant sumac in pilot hedgerows on Mount Wolfe Farm in Albion Hills.

In addition, Topsy Farm on Amherst Island also used Alleghany serviceberry, nannyberry, red oak, ninebark, hackberry, meadowsweet, grey dogwood, maple, highbush cranberry and chokecherry for its hedgerow.

Hedgerows have a circular lifecycle of 50 to 100 years before they become derelict and die. In the first 50 years, the shoots will proliferate from below-cut stems and thicken yearly, densifying interlocked branches.

At some point the hedgerow requires rejuvenation from the bottom, where hedge laying comes into play, said Jones.

Using stakes and binders, a “living hinge” is cut about four-fifths of the way through the tree near the base and is laid at a 35-degree angle between the stakes as a single-brush or double-brush system. Traditionally, if livestock is on both sides, a double brush system is employed.

He said a generous number of stems within the border is essential before laying a hedgerow.

The Ontario Rural Skills Network provides hedge laying workshops, as does Jones’ business, Hedgerow Co., which propagates indigenous species for hedgerow development.

The post Hedgerows enjoy potential new growth in Ontario appeared first on Farmtario.