Webinar: COG: Innovations in Cover Cropping

Cover cropping is an organic regenerative practice that can help increase on-farm soil health, crop health and water retention. Cover cropping is an integral part of increasing your farms resilience to the threats of climate change. This session offers an expanded overview of innovations in cover cropping in Ontario and across Canada and how you can apply them to your farm.

COG developed the curriculum for the cover cropping course as part of Farmers for Climate Solutions (FCS) Farm Resilience Management (FaRM) Program. FaRM is a free learning hub offering online resources, access to experienced farmer mentors, and a network of farmers in your region and across Canada to help you adopt practices that reduce emissions and build resilience.

Stuart Oke: Raised just outside of Kingston, Ontario Stuart Oke grew up in a non-farming family. After an accidental season spent working on organic farms in Ireland, as a member of WWOOF, he turned to farming full time in 2009. Since then, Stuart has farmed throughout Ontario and in Quebec. He has had the privilege of learning from and apprenticing under some truly inspirational and professional farmers over the years. In 2017 he co-founded Rooted Oak Farm, a vegetable and cut flower farm serving the Ottawa and Kingston area. Stuart is a proud member of the National Farmers Union and has worked as an organizer at the grassroots, provincial and national level of the organization. He served as the National NFU Youth President for three years. He is the current Vice-President of Canadian Organic Growers and is a passionate advocate of ecological and organic production.  He chairs the NFU Climate Committee and works in various capacities for the farmer coalition Farmers for Climate Solutions.  In the winter months and when not otherwise working you can hear him on the Who Will Feed Us Podcast where he is a producer and co-host.

Brent Preston: Brent worked as a human rights investigator, election observer and journalist on four continents before becoming a farmer. For the past fifteen years he has run The New Farm, a wholesale vegetable operation near Creemore, Ontario, with his wife, Gillian. The farm supplies specialty retail stores and some of the best restaurants in Canada. Brent speaks often on food and farming issues, and has written for the Huffington Post, Globe and Mail, and other publications. His memoir of starting a sustainable farm was a national bestseller. Brent is the President of the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario (EFAO).

Anne Verhallen: Anne is a Soil Management Specialist Horticulture at the University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus, Agronomy Building.

Areas of Focus:

• Field demonstration trials in cover crops, soil quality and irrigation scheduling
• Provide technical support in the area of wind erosion control, compaction, irrigation scheduling and other soil management issues related to the production of horticultural crops
• Editor of the Cover Crop Best Management Practices book