Farmers, thinkers, eaters
Agriculture is changing. Perhaps it always has been. Markets realign. Tastes shift. Ideas evolve. Climatic conditions rearrange. Mennonites are part of the change—as farmers, thinkers and eaters. Joanne Thiessen Martens notes another change. She grew up on a farm near Austin, Man. Then she studied agro-ecology out of an interest to work overseas, which she…
Tractor and binder
The Voth family in the Steinbach, Manitoba, area on the farm with tractor and binder in the 1940s. August is a busy harvesting time for farmers and gardeners with eyes on the upcoming fall and winter. Farming has changed dramatically in the past decades but remains the backbone to feeding the country and beyond.…
Field of dreams
What are the risks and rewards for people who choose a life on the farm? Young Voices spoke with three young Canadian Mennonites who work in agriculture to find out. Jedidiah Morton, 23 Didsbury, Alta. Jedidiah Morton isn’t the first person in his family to work in the dairy industry. His great-grandfather, Abram Lowen, settled…
‘Still carrying on the vision’
The passions that inspired Winnipeg’s community shared agriculture (CSA) movement and the famous Tall Grass Prairie Bakery are now making waves around the world, from Winnipeg to Hokkaido, Japan, and back. Ray Epp, one of Tall Grass’s five original co-founders, relocated his family to Hokkaido about 20 years ago to start an organic farm that…
World record for relief *
Manitoba became home to another world record on July 31, 2016, when 139 antique threshing machines harvested a field simultaneously for 15 minutes at the 62nd Manitoba Threshermen’s Reunion and Stampede held at the Manitoba Agricultural Museum in Austin. Nine others started, but, for various mechanical reasons, couldn’t finish the 15-minute test. “This was a…
One camera, five continents, seven farming communities
A filmmaker is teaming up with a historian to document how Mennonite farmers relate to the land in seven different communities around the globe. “When you get down to grassroots, people bring their faith to bear on their relationship to the land in very different ways,” says Mennonite historian Royden Loewen. “If you go to…
Who feeds the world?
Without conventional agriculture more people would starve. That is the link commonly drawn between global hunger and the dominant form of North American farming, which depends heavily on fertilizer, fuel, pesticide and genetic inputs. This link is captured in the axiom that says farmers “feed the world.” The implication of this phrase is often two-fold:…
