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Women sway their lithe bodies in colourful Chitenges to African music. Nearby, Japanese in loose white clothing perform precise Judo moves while a whiff of Croatian doughnuts mingles with Thai curries and French crepes. Swinging wide petticoat skirts, Italian girls whirl through the steps of a folkdance. If heaven is where everyone lives together in peace and harmony, Edmonton’s Heritage Festival is as close as it gets on earth.

On the festival’s homepage the organizing committee writes: “In spite of events that may be taking place on the international stage, local cultural associations have the foresight to look beyond sometimes centuries-old disagreements, co-exist peacefully for three days in the idyllic setting of Edmonton’s River Valley, and share with visitors, and with each other, those traditions that make their people unique.” (www.heritage-festival.com/about-us/)

What could be more Canadian? Every August long weekend for 35 years Edmonton has put on a huge multicultural party at Hawrelak Park. Visitors can sample food, shop for foreign art and clothing and watch traditional dancing at 63 pavilions representing 85 cultures.

Astounded by the sheer number of pavilions, I know that even with 85 cultures represented there are more – I see no Swiss or Zambian pavilions. I realize again how big, how diverse our world is and how much of that world is right here where we are.

A young man at the Zimbabwe pavilion tries to sell me a t-shirt. “My heart is in Africa,” it reads.

Almost, but he only has black ones. He’s from Harare, the capital city, and says they’re praying that things will change in Zimbabwe. He’s very interested in our work with small farmers in neighbouring Zambia. For a moment I forget I’m in Edmonton – it feels so good to talk to an African!

At the Kenyan pavilion I try to get some Ugali and Sukumawiki (cornmeal dish with steamed vegetables) to show my friends how Africans eat. But there’s none left. Oh well. We try some nectar of fig with rose water at the Arab pavilion. Everyone thinks it tastes like perfume. You can’t win them all!

The slice of scone with raisins from the Irish pavilion meets with more approval. Our son tries a cold herring sandwich at the Dutch food stand. Robert likes the pork kebabs from Croatia. One friend thinks she’ll just have a cone from the ice cream stand – at least then she knows what she’s getting!

A girl scoffs at her friends who want to get some food from the Somali stand. “We’re Somalis. Why would you get food there when you can have it at home?”

“Because it’s your country,” I tell her. “If there was a Swiss stand I’d go try something too.”

“Yes,” she answered thoughtfully. “I guess that makes sense.”

Canada prides itself on being multicultural, encouraging its citizens to retain pride of their heritage. As an immigrant myself, I appreciate this attitude. The whole atmosphere at the Heritage Festival makes me all the more proud to be a Canadian. Maybe heaven can begin down here!

“I mean it was just amazing, absolutely amazing!”

I’m on the phone with my good friend Eva Sanderson in Kitwe, Zambia. She’s talking about the overwhelming response to the Conservation Farming (CF) stands at the agriculture shows. It isn’t much more than a year ago that the two of us put together the first trip to the CF field day at Kapiri Mposhi for Kitwe area farmers. Out of that initial interest a bustling farming cooperative has formed, an outgrower’s project with bird’s eye chilies was done, and more field trips taken to the CF research station near Lusaka and other farms.

When Eva approached the CF Unit in Lusaka about sending someone out to man a stand at the Agriculture show days in Kitwe and then in Ndola they were skeptical. Their experience with farmers in the Copperbelt area wasn’t encouraging. They felt farmers weren’t serious out there about CF, nor would there be enough interest. “The response from the people was overwhelming,” Eva told me. The problem now is how to help everyone that wants information and training. That’s a good problem though.

A dynamic African woman, Eva is married to Murray, an English economist who’s been in Africa since l956. Few people in the Kitwe area don’t know her. Having been involved in both local and national politics she’s a woman well positioned to make things happen and she takes full advantage of every opportunity to do so.

Recently Eva bought 10 hectares of land just outside Kitwe. She hasn’t lost any time developing it. “You have no idea what you started,” she says to me, referring especially to a visit where I took her to meet the folks at Masaiti Farming Institute. A week later she was sitting at the Foundations of Farming course along with us. There we were trained in the message and methods of God’s Way of Farming, from which Conservation Farming was developed. Now she’s hired a farmer trained at the Institute to help her run her farm, and he’s brought several others with him.

Together they’ve planted Israeli tomatoes. The seedlings come from Amiran, a company that sold us the first irrigation equipment we worked with in Zambia. Next week a shipment of red and yellow bell pepper seedlings, and three kinds of lettuce seedlings are arriving. Hopefully the borehole will be completed by then. They have some water, but not enough for everything.

Another friend, Vivienne Mutale, wrote me: “You should have been here when we went to collect the maize (corn). We went with Margaret and two of my daughters. They were amazed at the work going on.” She’s another one that’s embraced Conservation Farming with success.

“You should be here,” Eva tells me.

Just wait Eva, I’ll get there again!

There’s a lot of commotion going on outside our usually quiet farm yard (half a mile from the road). I hear youthful voices amid the roar of a quad. This isn’t a bunch of adolescent kids out for a spin. They’re here on serious business – roguing.

Cyre Seed Farms Ltd. has 80 acres of fava beans planted just across from our home in two varieties, Snowbird and Imposa. Snowbird’s been around for a few years but Imposa is a new one. It shows promise, with a larger seed and looks like higher yields.

To make sure farmers get as pure a seed as possible the field is rogued – meaning people walk through it and pull out every plant that looks different than the seeded variety should. Mostly they’re looking for plants whose flowers have a purplish tinge instead of being pure white, with a black spot on the flowers. It’s a great summer job for rural teens. Not everyone enjoys it though – 80 acres becomes a very big field!

Fava beans used to be a rare sight around here, but not so much anymore. “They fix the most nitrogen of anything,” says Clifford Cyre. With the higher price of nitrogen fertilizer, interest in seed for the beans has picked up. Those grain farmers also in the hog business are growing fava beans to supplant soybeans in their hog rations. Fava beans used to be high in tannin, making the beans difficult for hogs to digest. With the introduction of zero tannin varieties fava beans are a popular option.

Too bad so many hog farmers around here have gone out of business. Along with the hogs went a lucrative local market for fava beans.

Clifford told me they are looking at the aqua market for their beans now. For a moment I thought I was back in Zambia, where so many are talking about fish farming. He was referring to the fish farms in B.C.

While doing a bit of internet surfing on fava beans, I found they are a very healthy option for us humans. Some sites talk about the positive influence on people with Parkinson’s disease (and the danger of eating larger amounts of fava beans while on the Parkinson drug levodopa) (www.scienzavegetariana.it/nutrizione/favabeans.html) . In “Outsmart Your Cancer,” by Tanya Harter Pierce, Robert read that fava beans contain a high amount of Vitamin B17, often used in alternative cancer treatments.

Parkinson’s runs in my family. I think I’d better grow a big row of fava beans in my garden next year! For this year I’ll ask Clifford if I can pick some from his field.

It’s raining here in Westlock! And high time. Crops were starting to show heat stress, some canola looked that dull blue. My family up in the Peace Country of B.C. is jealous. They haven’t had rain for weeks, with some days at over 30 degrees Celsius.

At the same time newspapers show front page pictures of western Canadian farms and towns under water and people using canoes for transport.

The Soccer World Cup in South Africa is over. We watched the last game at our Dutch neighbours’. There was no cheering there!

I wonder if Africa’s hopes that the World Cup would bring more unity and peace, especially to South Africa itself, will be fulfilled. Soccer is to Africa what hockey is to Canada or football to the USA. The Africans were immensely proud to host the World Cup on their continent.

Power shortages are normal in Zambia at the best of times. Zambia promised South Africa to provide them with extra power during the games. That’s also the time of year when the irrigation pumps need to be working full time.

Last April commercial farmers in Zambia were trying to decide how much wheat to plant. There’s absolutely no rain during the dry, cool wheat growing season. In 2008 Zambia had 180,000 hectares planted with wheat. That takes a lot of water. Would they get the necessary power?

I emailed Rassie du Toit, a wheat farmer in Mkushi farming block. Here’s his answer (from July 12): “Wheat is in head at the moment with power holding unexpectedly well. All irrigation is running very good, hope that the wheat marketing will improve, smaller crop than last year, should improve prices. We are in general under a lot of financial pressure but believe that it will turn around, it usually does!”

That last sentence could have been penned by a Canadian farmer! Zambian commercial farmers did very well for quite some time, building up some very impressive farms. Now they’ve run into overproduction, due to expansion and more farmers coming from Zimbabwe where they’ve been displaced by Robert Mugabe.

Zambia, with only 11 million people and most of them with little purchasing power, is a small market and quickly saturated. Exporting is difficult, as Zambia’s production costs are higher than those countries around them. Contributing factors are excise duty on diesel, high power costs, and distance to port.

But farmers are eternal optimists!

“There are risks and costs to a plan of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

Bukuumo Cooperative, in Zambia is painfully feeling the truth in this quote by John F. Kennedy.

Three years ago we helped them acquire a prime piece of agriculture land along the four lane highway just outside the large copper mining city of Kitwe. It was a long intricate act of wheeling and dealing, going from one office to another, going back to one office after another to get this permit and that one. Each move cost money.

Then it was ours – the desired papers finally in our hands. That’s when our business plan showed the intended project – a chicken layer barn for 10,000 layers, beginning with 1,000 – would have us broke after one round. One reason was the drastic rise in feed prices when the price of grain went through the roof. Another was faulty numbers in the first draft.

So the land, lying right next to a crowded poor subdivision, was left idle. We thought. A year ago last March Robert and I, together with another member, went to see where the cooperative could plant a vegetable market garden. Well, the garden was already planted! Several families built mud brick houses on the far side, far from the road where anyone would see.

It was decided something had to be done about the squatters. Some action was taken, but nothing happened. This year, when we arrived again, we were told things were much worse – there were about 20 buildings on the land now. We wanted to go have a look, but members thought it was too dangerous for two whites to be seen there. They promised us they would move on the problem.

Soon after we left, a delegation went out to the ZamTan farm to see what was happening.

“When we arrived at the farm, Marianne you can cry,” Tito emailed me on June 15. It seems the Rural Development Council of the district was selling small plots of the land to people for 1.5 and 3 million Zambian Kwachas (Cdn$350-700) apiece. Market stalls had opened. Not what we were planning!

So Bukuumo members acted. The chief culprit was arrested and he confessed, telling who else was involved. Bukuumo produced their official papers and the powers that be recognized them as the official owners. They promised to hold (and Tito went to make sure it happened) a meeting with all the squatters, who were given to July 4 to vacate.

On July 1 Tito emailed: “The ZamTan farm is quiet as ever…People have stopped building… I think we gave them real medicine. Since the place is quiet now, we need to move in fast. It is either we find a buyer now or do something to make people feel our presence.”

That’s exactly what Mr. Mate, the former chairman, felt we should do from the start. It’s all costing considerably more now than initial action would have. The police and lawyer are not free in Zambia either!

There’s another side to this problem of course – the squatters who feel they have paid hard earned money to be there. They’re not necessarily going to leave without some sort of repayment. And who’s going to do that?

Hardly home we’re on the road again. My nephew Jonathan Wenger graduates from high school this week in Fort St. John B.C. and we celebrated with a family BBQ. With six siblings and 16 nieces and nephews it makes for quite a gathering. The older I get the more I appreciate the value of family. It is special to see the bonds the grandchildren share. We missed that growing up as first generation immigrants from Switzerland.

Dad began farming here in l963, taking over a homestead from Hans Gross. He started with two cows, a wife, four little girls and very little money. Mostly he had a strong will and body – and us. We spent our summers picking roots and helping put up hay.

Today my brother milks 100 cows in a modern 16 cow Herringbone milk parlour. The native bush we played in has given way to fields of grain or hay waving in the breeze. Four of my siblings and two cousins farm in the larger area. Nieces and nephews are picking roots and chasing cows now.

The mighty Peace River runs through the most northern farming area of the province of British Columbia. Lying on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, the Peace Country is geographically more connected to Alberta than to B.C. I’ve heard talk in jest – or was it serious? – that it should cede to Alberta. The folks up here sometimes feel a little forgotten by those making policy down on the lower mainland.

It’s beautiful country with rolling hills, and rivers winding their way through deep canyons. Driving up here yesterday, a deep blue sky and fluffy clouds floated over acres of wheat and lemon canola fields just coming into bloom. I remember this is called the ‘Big Sky Country’.

The long hours of sunlight in the summer are what make it possible to farm this far north. Last week the sun rose in Fort St. John at 4:15 and set at 21:56. Even at midnight it’s not really dark. They have a half hour more sun per day right now than we do in Westlock. But it’s always been a high risk area for grain production. The risk has more to do with rainfall. It seems it’s often either too dry or too wet.

Many of the farmers that settled the area came from the Prairies, escaping the massive drought of the thirties and years after. Now we see pictures of the same prairies flooded while farmers here pray for rain. They had some good spring moisture, but it’s definitely dry now.

I brew a cup of tea, slip into my clogs and go inspect my garden. Another limp bean, another dead spinach plant! A little digging with my finger reveals the culprit – a fat grey caterpillar, a cutworm – that squished between the hard soil and my wooden clogs reveals a greenish gooey mess that used to be my spinach plant. They must be running out of spinach – this morning one actually ate a weed.

My neighbours and the newspapers tell me farmers are struggling with the same problem. Cutworms are cutting into the profits of grain farmers.

I talked to Bill Chapman, development officer with Alberta Agriculture. “If you’ve got seagulls or crows in your fields you’ve got a problem,” he says. The birds might be enjoying a good feed of fat cutworms. But the birds aren’t eating enough to prevent some palpable economic damage. Farmers in our area have been spraying for a week and a half already and are still at it.

A representative of Agricore told me some farmers have 10-15 acre bare patches expanding on a daily basis, while others have negligible or no damage. Farmers need to check their fields closely – if they find 1-4 larvae in a foot of plant row, they are reaching the economic threshold for spraying. If the larvae are half inch or less in size, they still have a lot of eating to do. Larger ones are towards the end of their life cycle.

The increase in cutworms this year comes from an influx of moths from the USA that blew in last summer. One farmer told me those who practice no-till don’t have cutworms, but Chapman says that’s an old wives tale. It’s not your tillage system – it’s where the moths laid their eggs.

Whenever I see those big fat cutworms I see the barrels of dried caterpillars on the Kitwe market in Zambia. Many Africans look forward to the caterpillar season. Some like them fried with onions and tomatoes, others like them as snacks just dried as they are. Maybe we should be collecting the things instead of spraying them! To be truthful, I’m glad I’ve been able to escape the thrill of having them on my plate. I prefer them squished between my clogs and the dirt.

The farmer renting our home quarter has a great crop of canola coming. It’s so thick a few cutworms might even be welcome. But now the plants are looking a little blue – for lack of moisture. It’s ironic to read the last Western Producer with pictures of floods everywhere and complain of drought here.

June 15, 2010: Many of the last of the Swiss flower meadows will fall to the scythe (oops – the mower) today. That’s the haying date Swiss farmers have to wait to for, to be eligible for extra subsidies for ecological safety zones. The delay gives birds nesting in meadows time to hatch out their eggs.

On my walk between two canola fields near our house in western Canada a little bird swooped into the air just in front of me and fluttered away. There between the dandelions and grasses was a well concealed nest with four beige speckled eggs in it. I’m not much of a birder, so couldn’t identify the bird. But it was lucky – Luke, the farmer, only sprayed to the edge of the field, and Robert hasn’t gone through with the mower yet. I’ll have to tell him to wait a few weeks first so the eggs can hatch and the little ones grow.

Later I drove by a dugout at the edge of a field. The wild grass etc around it had just been sprayed. I wondered how many birds’ nests or other small wildlife habitats were destroyed.

The visit to Gabi Uelinger a few weeks ago in Switzerland has sensitized me. I used to see ‘cutlines’ – rows of shrubs and trees along quarter lines – as windbreaks at best. Now I know they are home to many forms of life. Not that I didn’t appreciate the birds or flowers while walking by, I just didn’t really see them as something to be protected.

“A diverse ecosystem is better able to respond to environmental changes or stresses, such as floods, drought, pests and disease,” says an article on Ropin’ the Web, the government of Alberta’s agricultural website. (www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex10342).

It goes on to say: “Conservation efforts can be enhanced by the adoption of management practices that encourage the integration of wild species within agricultural landscapes. The preservation of non-crop habitats is important to the conservation potential of the agricultural lands. Sustainable farming can integrate the interests of agriculture and wildlife.”

Windbreaks, wider strips of grass along the edge of fields or between fields, wide ditches, sloughs, etc., all are precious habitat for nature. We as farmers can help to preserve or even enlarge them with little effort. Being careful to spray only to the edge of the field; waiting at least to midsummer to mow; seeing windbreaks not as bothersome trees in the way of a big field but as nurturers of life – it takes a change of attitude. Maybe it’s not just African farmers that need to rethink! What do you think? I know my farmer would still see the thistles before he’d see the bird…

June 8, 2010: It’s hardly 100 meters from the house to the barn, but I had to stop to catch my breath. My cousin Susanne farms with her husband Dominik Roth high up on the hillside of the Swiss Alps. For us flatlanders, those steep hills take a bit of getting used to!

Various members of my family have visited Susanne and Dominik over the years and all rave about the experience – both of their hospitality and the spectacular mountain scenery. We can vouch for both.

When we arrived Thursday afternoon the clouds hung down over the mountainside. We hiked up over the pastures, enjoying the Swiss meadow flowers, especially the deep blue Enzian which was just coming to full bloom. Cow bells tinkled all around us.

The next morning we woke to the calendar version – deep blue sky, blooming alpine meadows, silver slices of fog patches along gleaming snow peaks. After a breakfast of yoghurt and granola, wholesome bread with their own honey along with wholesome conversation Robert and I set out for the Alp.

The dairy cows in the area all spend the summer on Alp Rona, at 1745 meters above sea level. The community pasture runs 74 cows, which are milked together in a modern barn. The milk is processed into cheese right there, which qualifies it for Alp Cheese – and a better price.

We got the insider tour of the Alp chalet, complete with ultra modern dairy processing equipment. Hans made the first cheese that morning – the cows just came up the day before. There are still about 30 cheeses in the storeroom from last year. I’m a cheese lover – the generous slice Hans cut us was superb!

Between the blooming alpine meadows, the cowbells in the clear air, and the almost 360 degree view of snow peaks around us I was ecstatic. (Maybe it was the thin air?) Even now, looking at pictures, I marvel at the beauty.

After a lunch of the farm’s own sausages (the Roth’s market their own Natura Beef) we helped take the rest of the cattle to another community pasture. It was a walk of about 4 kilometers, and the cattle started out running – Susanne out in front. They soon slowed down and the rest of us caught up. The day before Dominik fitted them all with cow bells – a stipulation if you take your cattle to the pasture. It helps the cowboy to locate the cattle in knolls and fog.

It’s a challenge to farm those steep hillsides and Dominik says they couldn’t make a living without heavy subsidies. But it’s a healthy lifestyle. Their daughter Jael does her homework on the deck, the gleaming snow peaks before her. Won’t her marks profit from the inspiration of beauty and clear air?

We’re up in the air as I write this – on our way back to Canada after six months away. I’ve got mixed feelings, but it will be good to be home for a while!

June 1, 2010: A wild flower meadow blooms along the street in front of the historic house. It’s an apt greeting from a farm whose vision it is to produce healthy food in harmony with nature, not against it.

Gabi Uelinger rents the farm from her father Fritz, who still works with her. Together they produce the usual crops of wheat, canola, sugar beets and sun flowers. These are produced according to the IP (Integrated Production) Suisse subsidy program. Fertilizers and herbicides are allowed, but not insecticides and fungicides. Besides that they can choose between a variety of projects that give them biodiversity points – i.e. wider strips of wild meadows along the fields, piles of rocks or logs, or leaving part of the hay field uncut.

Rural Switzerland is the playground of urban Swiss. There’s hardly a spot in this country where you won’t see someone hiking or biking on a side road along some field or meadow. Most Swiss are happy to have some of their tax dollars go towards encouraging farmers to use ecologically sound farming practices.

Gabi’s real passion lies with the wild flower seed cultivation. Of the 20 hectares on the farm, up to two are used to grow various varieties of wild flowers for seed. It’s a finicky job – each flower has its own preferences as to microclimate, soil and care. Everything is done by hand – planting, weeding, harvesting. The latter is an especially time consuming job. Almost each plant matures at a different period.

Driving through the area, we’ve often seen large patches of wild flowers growing uncut and seemingly unkempt among the neat fields of wheat and corn. These are ‘buntbrache’ – wild fallow. Their purpose is to enable birds, insects, butterflies and other wildlife to resettle in the area again.

Gabi told me that the Skylark had almost totally disappeared out of Switzerland’s farmland. Through the ecological spaces created for them they are now a common bird in our area again. The skylark’s song rewards all those who worked hard to bring them back. Other birds and insects have become much more common again.

When we left Switzerland 15 years ago, it was rare to see red poppies blooming at the edges of canola fields. Now they nod cheerily across the way from wild flower strips and small hedges. When I think of the huge grain fields in Western Canada, I wonder if there will ever be an ecological revolution there. It would have to happen on a different scale, I think.