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Prime end market for compost remains underutilized

OSCIA and CCC members at a spring, 2011 ‘field day’, touring the Region of Peel’s centralized compost facility.
OSCIA and CCC members at a spring, 2011 ‘field day’, touring the Region of Peel’s centralized compost facility.

It’s no secret that agricultural fields are a prime end-market for compost products, but the market remains under-utilized.  

Larry Conrad of the Region of Peel is one advocate who has taken the lead to rally the development of a multi-year effort to build awareness, conduct trials and nurture ongoing usage of compost within the Ontario agricultural market.

Combining the forces of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), the Ontario Soil & Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA) and The Compost Council of Canada (CCC), a series of meetings have already been held this year to map out a strategy to build confidence and conduct field research to demonstrate compost’s value in agricultural soil. 

Following networking and exhibit at the provincial Farm$ense conference in Guelph in February, a field day involving OSCIA members in the Peel Region and CCC Compost Producers was held mid-Spring. With over 125 attendees, the event involved tours of both the Peel Centralized Compost Facility and Curing Area as well as overview presentations on the composting process by Lambert Otten, Technical Advisor to the CCC, and Christine Brown, Nutrient Management Field Crop Lead, OMAFRA. Compost application equipment demonstrations were a highlight of the tours, and led to a number of immediate purchases. 

The planning committee, which came out of the spring meetings, led by Conrad, has been working on the preparation of field trial proposals, including soil analytical testing, plot size and crop selection, which they say will enable in-field implementation for the 2012 planting season.  

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