Bright future for organic sector, says Canadian Organic Growers president

Allison Squires was one of the first farmers in Canada to be certified “regenerative organic” in 2021. As the Canadian Organic Growers president, she is one of the panelists scheduled for a keynote session entitled “Organics in a Changing Climate – Cross Country Perspectives,” planned Thursday, Jan. 25 as a kick-off to the annual Guelph Organic Conference.

The conference runs Jan. 24-27, in its long-time home in and around the Student Centre at the University of Guelph. New this year is the venue for the keynote sessions Thursday evening, which will be held from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the ballroom of Guelph’s Delta Hotel.

The panel takes place at 6:30 p.m. and also includes Toronto-based urban farm operator Ran Goel, Canadian organic agriculture researcher Av Singh, and Quebec-based organic market gardener and author Jean-Martin Fortier.

Squires, born in Newfoundland and raised in Guelph in a non-farming family, pursued post-secondary studies in toxicology – first at her hometown University of Guelph and then for post-graduate work at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

She remained on the Prairies, and now farms with her husband, Cody Straza, and their three children in southwest Saskatchewan, 20 minutes north of the Montana border.

Under the name Uplands Organics and based near Wood Mountain, they manage 8,500 acres of grains, pulses, oilseeds and native grassland.

“Our big focus is building the soil,” she said in a recent interview.

COG president since 2021, Squires is excited to share her thoughts on the present and future of the country’s organic sector, which she describes as being in a strong position. The entire agri-food sector in Canada is still feeling the after-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, she says, many still put priorities on healthier foods and shortening the supply chain distance between field and table.

Citing statistics from the Canadian Organic Trade Association, Squires said the total trade in organic food in Canada rose from $859.25 million in 2021 to $935.8 million in 2022.

That same factsheet shows the number of certified organic producers has been shrinking in Canada since 2021 and the number of certified organic processors slipped by eight per cent in the same time. But Squires suggested the experience on her family’s farm indicates a more positive trend.

“On our farm, we used to export almost everything we grow to Europe. And that’s still a good market for us,” she said. “But we’re also finding, more and more, that there are potential customers starting businesses in Canada.”

They now have small-scale mills on the Prairies, and as far away as Vancouver and Montreal, that want to use products from their farm.

“It’s still not a major part of our customer base but it is growing year over year.”

She conceded that logistics for smaller-scale orders (some customers want 25 kilogram bags; others are looking for single totes) can be more complex and expensive to manage but that’s something they’re working to streamline. And despite the added costs of small-scale logistics, Uplands Organics is finding those markets can return an equal or better margin than the larger-scale exports.

Squires notes there’s also a growing focus among consumers to take note of the climate change impacts of the food they eat. She believes that fits with their farm, where despite successive years of drought conditions, they continue to experiment with cover crops for grazing during the summer.

“Right now, our farm is really focused on drought mitigation,” she said, adding she and Straza have been exploring methods to scale up the practice of composting and applying compost teas for effective use on a large acreage.

“But prior to the drought, we were growing some really beautiful cover crops, sometimes up to your shoulders.”

Dry conditions forced them to downsize their cattle herd to around 200 head, but those cattle continue to rotationally graze cover crops throughout the summer. In the winter, they remain outside and bale-graze fields where the Uplands Organics duo aims to boost fertility. The bales are set in rows to also provide some shelter.

Being at the forefront of the regenerative organic movement has been beneficial. The program combines on-farm data with professional agronomic advice to create a production plan geared specifically to each operation.

Through her leadership of COG, Squires helped organize a regenerative organic oats hub in Saskatchewan.

“We’re actually too far south to grow oats for milling,” she said. But she has enjoyed the unique learning opportunities now provided to about a dozen farmers further north in the province.

For more information about the Guelph Organic Conference, visit www.guelphorganicconf.ca.