The greening of Atlantic Canadian farmers
Farmers doing what they can to cut back on emissions and ecological degradation, all while adapting to a changing climate.
Floreren Farm's Paul Wartman and his family host an agroecology exchange on May 4 with other members of the agricultural community in Annapolis Valley, N.S. Photo courtesy of Paul Wartman.
Atlantic Canadian farmers are making moves to foster and embrace a more environmentally sustainable future, as they also face the reality of farming in a changing climate.
Farmers across all four provinces are looking at a myriad of alternative farming approaches — from installing renewable energy infrastructure to pursuing ecofriendly food production.
According to a 2024 National Farmers Union (NFU) report, between 1990 and 2021 Atlantic Canada’s agricultural emissions “changed relatively little,” as farmers made the transition off livestock and fuel oil onto nitrogen fertilizer and diesel.
The Atlantic Provinces combined have the same emissions intensity as Ontario, each year generating 1.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide and equivalents per acre of cropland.
At the heart of the movement to cut back on farm emissions and ecological degradation is agroecology, a philosophy coined by human rights organization La Via Campesina that targets sustainable farming by combining environmental knowledge, local expertise, and social justice.
In Nova Scotia, proponents for agroecology include 35-year-old Paul Wartman, an NFU member who, along with his children and wife, ilana Vanderweit, runs Floreren Farm in the province’s Annapolis Valley.
Since 2018, they’ve grown about 30 different medicinal herbs, nursery nut trees, and medicinal shrubs — across five acres. They have title to 30 acres but share the land with neighbouring farmers to maximize its utility.
“ilana and I came into farming from an academic background, learning about the many issues of agriculture that have come out of the Green Revolution — how energy-intensive it is and what the cascading impacts of that are,” says Wartman, a first-generation farmer.
Paul Wartman, right, his wife ilana Vanderweit, left, and their children at their Floreren Farm in Annapolis Valley, N.S. Photo courtesy of Paul Wartman.
His family has made big lifestyle choices to not own a diesel-burning tractor, for example, nor use environmentally harmful nitrogen fertilizer. And while Floreren Farm still gets energy from Nova Scotia Power’s grid, Wartman is conscious of keeping this amount as low as possible.
Even as more and more farms move off the grid, Wartman emphasizes that “clean” energy doesn’t necessarily imply clean operations are providing it. He points to Lithium mining, heavily relied on internationally for solar batteries and now being explored in Nova Scotia, as one example of how resource extraction should be scrutinized by farmers in their energy transition.
Frank Jopp of Auenland Farm, which began operating in 1983 in Sussex, N.B., and reportedly became the province’s first solar-powered farm around 2017, was helped by the Smart Energy Company — a company to assist farmers install renewable energy systems — to install about 400 photovoltaic cells.
Jopp’s thousand-acre dairy operation, which has 100 cows and produces dry corn, bitter rye, oat, and soybean, runs largely on solar.
“I always thought that the best form of energy to install was clean electricity,” Jopp says. “We’re already producing more than we need.”
With capacity for 160 kilowatts (enough to power 20 households for at least a year), Auenland Farm profits from a 25-year agreement with NB Power where he sells the excess power he generates back to the regulator.
The Smart Energy Company says Auenland Farm has, to date, supplied more than 435,000 kilowatt-hours of solar energy to New Brunswick’s grid. Jopp hopes net metering agreements continue to financially support and incentivize farmers to install renewable energy.
“There are more and more farms picking up on this — putting solar on, and covering the majority of their electricity costs,” he says, pointing to 18 other New Brunswick farms the Smart Energy Company has helped with solar installation.
Wartman agrees that solar presents a “huge opportunity” for Atlantic Canadian farmers. Through the Advancing Clean Technology for Nova Scotia Program, for example, eligible farms can apply for funding to install solar and other low-carbon, fuel-switching technologies.
And, says Wartman, transitioning to renewable energies may require minimal adjustments in management for farmers.
“For some things — like changing to solar energy, there’s not a huge change in terms of what’s happening in your farm operations,” he says, adding that industry organizations such as the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture (NSFA) offer programming for farmers looking to shift to more sustainable practices, including soil management.
Over on Prince Edward Island, Donald Killorn, executive director of the PEI Federation of Agriculture, says farmers in Atlantic Canada more and more are working towards getting off the grid, including through the use of solar.
According to Statistics Canada, by 2021 one in 10 Newfoundland and Labrador farms was producing renewable energy — mostly solar. Six per cent of Nova Scotia farms had solar by 2022, according to the province’s finance department. Since 2023, New Brunswick’s agriculture department has funded $348,400 to help farmers transition and offset energy reliance. To date, PEI’s Department of Agriculture has provided $2.4 million in funding for 96 farms going forward with energy efficiency projects and has issued 36 rebates to help farmers cover solar installation costs.
Kraig Porter, lead energy manager for agriculture with Efficiency Nova Scotia, a utility that helps homeowners and businesses streamline energy efficiency projects, says while farmers “like the reliability and, I guess, the resiliency of the grid…with some of the smaller farms, we are seeing interest in getting off-grid."
Porter says unaffordable capital costs are the biggest hurdle to making that transition. In its 2024 report, the NFU emphasized that governments must strike policy and programs to help Atlantic Canada’s farmers transition to lower-emission systems.
"It's really important that we have these programs and supports to help bring down the capital costs," Porter says, adding that more energy efficiency on farms will play an important part in saving electricity, reducing labour demands, and increasing agricultural productivity — all obviously that much more important given the recent US trade tensions and need for Canadian food sovereignty.
Wartman says agroecology exchanges will also help farmers learn from each other about best management practices. When Floreren Farm hosted its first exchange on May 4 of this year — the eighth one co-organized by the NFU’s Nova Scotia chapter — 20 members of the Annapolis Valley farming community joined.
“We learn about a particular practice, whether that’s restoring more perennial plants that help to sequester more carbon, transitioning your tractor from diesel to solar power, or learning how to save seed (for the next growing season),” Wartman says.
He says it’s important for farmers, agriculture workers, and consumers to collectively lobby both levels of government to help farms implement these sustainable practices.
For farmers with lower budgets, Porter suggests improving energy efficiency with renewable lighting, ventilation fans, frost-free water bowls for livestock, and variable speed systems for air conditioners or heat pumps. Anywhere from a few hundred to few thousand dollars can be enough to make an off-grid project happen on a farm, he says.
"Really anything that's under five years' payback, I would call low-hanging fruit.”
And for farmers unsure what off-grid project to pursue, Porter says to start at the beginning.
“The first thing is just getting an audit (from an energy efficiency company) to see what their opportunities are."
Frank Jopp, owner of Auenland Farm, in front of his farm's solar installation. Photo courtesy of The Smart Energy Company.
Climate Stories Atlantic is an initiative of Climate Focus, a non-profit organization dedicated to covering stories about community-driven climate solutions.
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