The Organic BC Podcast

This podcast was funded by the Climate Agri-Solutions Fund. Funding for the Climate Agri-Solutions Fund has been provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Agricultural Climate Solutions – On-Farm Climate Action Fund. This episode was produced in partnership with the Small Scale Meat Producers Association . In this episode of the podcast, the second of a two-part series about managed...

This podcast was funded by the Climate Agri-Solutions Fund. Funding for the Climate Agri-Solutions Fund has been provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Agricultural Climate Solutions – On-Farm Climate Action Fund In this episode of the podcast, the first of a two-part series about managed grazing for weed control. Managed grazing can take different forms with different names…rota...

This episode was funded by the Organic Federation of Canada to highlight the work of the 2025 Review of the Canadian Organic Standards By the time this episode airs, the newest version of the Canadian Organic Standards will have been published. This is a big deal! We only get an update to the standards every five years, and only after a multi-year process involving dozens of people, many of them v...

This episode was funded by the Organic Federation of Canada to highlight the work of Organic Science Cluster 4. The Organic Science Cluster is an industry-led research and development endeavour co-managed by the Organic Federation of Canada and the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada at Dalhousie University. It is also supported by the AgriScience Program under Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s...

This episode was funded by the Organic Federation of Canada to highlight the work of Organic Science Cluster 4. The Organic Science Cluster is an industry-led research and development endeavour co-managed by the Organic Federation of Canada and the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada at Dalhousie University. It is also supported by the AgriScience Program under Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s...

This podcast was funded by the Climate Agri-Solutions Fund. Funding for the Climate Agri-Solutions Fund has been provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Agricultural Climate Solutions – On-Farm Climate Action Fund. This episode, a focus on cover cropping north of the 60th parallel, where long days and short growing seasons limit the applicability of the standard advice about cover...

This episode, the topic is biofumigation, a biological form of pest control that involves growing and turning under certain cover crop species that naturally suppress many weeds and soil-borne diseases and pests. In this episode: Tom Forge , a research scientist at the Summerland Research & Development Centre. Kip Cantrell, garlic grower at Thistle Farm in the Creston Valley. This document fro...

This episode, the topic is silvopasture, a branch of agroforestry that purposefully combines trees, forage, and livestock on the same land unit to create a mutually beneficial, intensively managed system. Our guest for this episode is Lisa Zabek, Agroforestry Specialist at the BC Ministry of Agriculture, who joined us to explain how silvopasture systems work, the benefits these systems deliver whe...

This episode, a look at the use of bale grazing as an alternative to tillage when attempting to manage field-edge encroachment by woody perennials like rosebush and willow. Farmer Rob Larson operates a mixed livestock operation that covers around 5000 acres Northwest of Fort St. John, in BC’s Peace country. The encroachment of wild rosebush onto some of Rob’s fields has been an ongoing challenge t...

This podcast was funded in part by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the BC Climate Agri-Solutions Fund delivered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. This episode features two compelling arguments for the use of cover crops in field crop or vegetable production. In the first segment, we’ll learn about a Fraser Valley Dairy Farmer’s experience with planting a relay cover crop onc...

This podcast was funded in part by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the BC Climate Agri-Solutions Fund delivered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. This episode: the final chapter in our miniseries on rotational grazing in collaboration with BC’s Small Scale Meat Producers Association. This one features a long-form conversation with rancher Joseph Moilliet of Avely Ranch , a s...

This podcast was funded in part by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the BC Climate Agri-Solutions Fund delivered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. This episode: the next chapter in our miniseries on rotational grazing in collaboration with BC’s Small Scale Meat Producers Association. In the first two episodes, we learned about the fundamental principles of rotational grazing...

This episode, a look at cover-cropping in the vineyard context. My guest this episode is Lisa Wambold. Lisa has spent a lot of her career in vineyards consulting with farmers on beneficial management practices, including cover cropping. She’s a big believer in the positive role cover crops can play both in both the mid-row and under the vines, and so I asked her to join me to summarize the benefit...

This episode, an interview with Sarah Stewart, and a shorter segment from an interview with Jichul Bae.  The last few years, farmer and videographer Sarah Stewart has been working with Organic BC on some extension work that has involved a pretty big focus on emerging technologies for mechanical weed management. She’s learned a tonne about autonomous weeding robots and the use of lasers and el...

This episode, a return to the topic of robotic weeding technology. This time, I speak with two farmers, each of whom has spent considerable time working using some cutting edge weeding machinery. There has been a lot of hype around robotic- and AI-driven agritech. I invited these two farmers to share their perspectives about the performance of a couple such tools on the farm, in order to get...

This podcast was funded in part by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the BC Climate Agri-Solutions Fund delivered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. This episode, part two of our miniseries on rotational grazing in collaboration with BC’s Small Scale Meat Producers Association . The first two episodes will cover the fundamentals of managed rotational grazing in the context of t...

This podcast was funded in part by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the BC Climate Agri-Solutions Fund delivered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. This episode, we launch a miniseries on rotational grazing in collaboration with BC’s Small Scale Meat Producers Association . The first two episodes will cover the fundamentals of managed rotational grazing in the context of the h...

The last four episodes of the podcast made up a miniseries about GAP Certification for small and medium-scale farms. The main focus of this miniseries was the work of Okanagan farmer Emily Jubenvil to obtain GAP certification for her carrots and beets in order  to preserve and expand her access to wholesale markets. The series is essentially done, but as I promised last week, I’m back with on...

This is episode three of our miniseries about GAP Certification for small and medium-scale farms. So far, you’ve heard three episodes about Okanagan farmer Emily Jubenvil and her pursuit of GAP certification to preserve and expand her access to wholesale markets. If you’ve already listened, you know that Emily’s experience was largely positive and entirely successful. We thought we might end the s...

This is episode three in a series about whether GAP certification is a viable option for small-scale farmers who want to gain, preserve, or expand access to wholesale marketing channels. This episode: The GAP Audit & Emily's Final Thoughts Referenced int his episode: BC's On-farm Food Safety Funding ***** This episode is part three of a miniseries about Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), a foo...

This is episode two in a series about whether GAP certification is a viable option for small-scale farmers who want to gain, preserve, or expand access to wholesale marketing channels. This episode: In Pursuit of GAP Certification. ***** This episode is part two of a miniseries about Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), a food safety certification designed for particpants in the fresh fruit & ve...

This episode kicks off a miniseries about Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), a food safety certification designed for particpants in the fresh fruit & veggie supply chain. Increasingly, food distributors and grocery stores are requiring their suppliers to hold GAP certification. This requirement has concerned many small-scale fruit & veggie growers, who believe that GAP certification was d...

This episode of the Organic BC Podcast was funded in part by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the BC Climate Agri-Solutions Fund delivered by Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. University of Wisconsin-Madison soil scientist Matthew Ruark joins us to talk about some research he co-authored on the use of cover crops to reduce nutrient pollution following a manure application, and how t...

This episode: we explore the potential of tools that use electricity to control weeds on the farm. Specifically, you'll learn about the research of our guest, Marcelo Moretti, on an electric weeder produced by a Brazilian Company called Zasso for use in perennial cropping systems. Marcelo Moretti is a Weed Science Specialist and an Associate Professor with the Department of Horticulture at Oregon...

This episode is all about robotic weeding technology for the farm. Jordan interviews Kristen Obeid and Chuck Haggerty about why the time has come to give robotic weeding tools some serious consideration and the strengths and limitations of these tools. Here's a link for listeners who want to be able to picture these tools as they listen. Our guests will also summarize some of the options currently...