You can’t stay on the mountaintop forever.
After an incredible start to 2021 with the Midwest Cover Crops Council Conference in February, we’ve been taking time to review, recoup, and regroup for the rest of the year. This has included completing our 2020-2021 Annual Report, filming some more soil science videos with farmers and researchers, publishing new study summaries, and hosting educational events with highschool groups.
The past 12 months have not been at all what we were expecting. They have not been easy. But when does anything of lasting good come by ease?
We have rediscovered the interwoven values of community, diversity, and resilience. The soil health network in Ontario – socially distanced east from west – has discovered a connection we previously didn’t imagine was possible. Resilience and diversity continue to earn their keep as indispensable ingredients to the future of our farms, the climate, our world.
Whatever a post-pandemic reality looks like, we’ve learned some important lessons that will not be easily lost.
If the crop of any one year was all, a man would have to cut his throat every time it hailed.
Wendell Berry, Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer, XIII
But the real products of any year’s work are the farmer’s mind and the cropland itself.
Stay grounded.
Cam Ogilvie
Knowledge Mobilization Coordinator
