COVID-19 will be tough on farms. Here are a few ways you can help.
As COVID-19 deepens its impact, A Greener World is working to protect our staff and communities (see more about our response here), but farmers are going to need support from all of us. Now is the time to be rallying around our independent farmers. Because of this epidemic, they could see orders from restaurants and food vendors be severely restricted or indeed canceled. This is an area that causes us grave concern, as most of our certified farmers supply markets…
How AGW is Responding to COVID-19
We’ve been in touch with our team and farmers, and wanted to also share with our wider community how we are addressing the challenges that arise from COVID-19. We have suspended travel since March 5 and will be reviewing this decision regularly. As an organization we are respectful of our team members and many stakeholders’ varying health risks, and recognize it would be reckless to travel at a time when we are not certain of the location or spread of…
Going Non-GMO
It is fair to say that most North Americans have been unwittingly eating GMO foods since the mid-1990s. According to National Geographic, around 65% of all processed foods on U.S. supermarket shelves—from pizza, chips and cookies to ice cream, salad dressing and corn syrup—contain ingredients from GMO soybeans, corn or canola. Despite long-term public consumption of GMO foods and increased awareness and understanding of GMO technology in North America, the proportion of consumers actively avoiding GMOs has almost tripled since…
Bovine Bloat
Bloat is over-distension of the rumen caused by the accumulation of fermentation gases in the rumen. Primary bloat or frothy bloat usually occurs as an outbreak in several animals on pasture containing high levels of leguminous plants, in particular clover. Secondary or gaseous bloat is rare and usually the result of a physical obstruction of oesophagus in individual animals. In primary bloat, froth forms in the rumen and natural eructation (belching) is prevented. Without intervention, gas rapidly builds in the…
Removing Livestock
Sometimes it is necessary to remove your animals from pasture for welfare reasons. AGW’s farm standards account for this reality (see section 7.5). There are two types of exclusion: Emergency and Planned. For an operation to maintain compliance, however, you must be able to justify removal based on one or the other. Let’s define the two types of removal. Emergency removal Emergency removal is defined as something that is far outside of the norm; something that happens less than one…
