A Dresden area farmer is receiving a provincial award for his innovative approach to growing sugar beets.
Laurent Van Arkel is one of several recipients of the 2016 Premier’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence.
He says his innovative approach is to improve soil health,
“The long-term goal is to improve the soil health quality of my farms. What I do is I incorporate as little tillage as possible, and use cover crops or a living root system as much as possible. Doing that with sugar
beets is kind of a new frontier in a sense, especially in Ontario and North Dakota. They describe it as a zone till where you are only disturbing soil in a small zone where you’re going to be planting your crops, and leaving the rest of the field or row undisturbed.”
He also says his approach was inspired by a quote,
“You don’t inherit the land from your father – you borrow it from your children.”
Other recipients of the award include Blueberry Hill in Rodney and Orangeline Farms in Leamington.
