October is Backpacking 4 Biodiversity month! Join One School One Farm in raising awareness and funds to help our work promoting biodiversity.
See the full event details, sign up or donate at the Backpacking 4 Biodiversity Canada Helps page.
Want to join up with some planned Backpacking 4 Biodiversity hikes in and around Saskatoon? See more details here.
One School One Farm Shelterbelt Project is increasing biodiversity and building relationships. We hope to create wildlife corridors for species large and small throughout the agricultural regions in Canada, starting with Saskatchewan.
Why is increasing perennial plant cover in agricultural systems so important?
Each time a plant breathes, it inhales carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen AND water vapour. Native perennial plants start photosynthesizing first thing in the spring and they continue until fall. In contrast, annual crops will only provide this service for their short growing season.
It is vital to the health of our food systems in the future to retain and maintain biologically diverse perennial plantings around or near croplands.
The way we intend the term Shelterbelt in our projects is as habitat or shelter for prairie plants, soil microbes, and wildlife of all kinds – pollinators, beneficial predatory insects, birds, mammals, amphibians, etc.
Land Acknowledgement:
We acknowledge the soils that grow food for the world and how they developed out of deep relationships between prairie plants, bison, fire, and the Indigenous caretakers of Turtle Island. We acknowledge that we are on treaty land, referred to as Treaty 4 and 6. These territories encompass the lands of the Cree Nêhiyawak, Saulteaux Nakawē, Dakota, Nakota (Yankton and Yanktonai), Lakota, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation. We acknowledge the harms and mistakes of the past, and we are committed to moving forward in partnership with Indigenous Nations in the spirit of reconciliation and collaboration.
May our relationships with the land and waters teach us to honour and respect the past and invite us to move forward in harmony. May we all come together as friends, to find inspiration and guidance from histories, languages, and cultures which broaden our understanding and community collaboration for the present and future.
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