While industrial agriculture has brought certain advantages and conveniences, it is important to acknowledge the many ways the current food system fails to meet societal needs. Dr. Tatenda Mambo highlights how regenerative and agroecological practices can address some of the concerns arising from industrial agriculture systems, and move agriculture away from depleting the very resources it is dependent on. He shares insights from a southern Alberta integrated farm research project where his team studies ways to cycle nutrients and recapture the value in “waste”. He also discusses ongoing on-farm experiments comparing the performance of locally saved seeds vs nationally distributed seeds and the productivity of different types of horticultural beds.
Tatenda Mambo is a postdoc in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape and an Instructor in the Sustainability Studies program at the University of Calgary. Mambo’s research explores sustainability, sustainable food systems, regenerative agriculture, and food security. At the Simon Farm Project his research team is using regenerative agriculture and agroecological principles to develop an integrated farm model that explores how a more local food system can use agriculture to address environmental problems and local food needs while modelling sustainability.
