Tolhurst Farms: A model of environmental stewardship and social responsibility
Amy Tolhurst and her family work daily to bring the concept of sustainability to life on their Quebec dairy farm.
Tolhurst Farms set their sights on key aspects of their farm business to ensure a sustainable and inclusive future.
Ken and Amy Tolhurst and their son Bob manage Tolhurst Farms, with a 120-cow milking herd and about 350 acres of crops.
“I’ve never met anybody in farming that doesn’t want to do their best,” says Tolhurst. For their best, Tolhurst Farms consciously set their sights on three key aspects of their farm business to ensure a sustainable and inclusive future – a proactive approach to environmental sustainability, a family-oriented atmosphere and a whole-farm view.
The decarbonization journey
Driven in part by the Dairy Farmers of Canada’s goals to help the sector reach net zero by 2050, Tolhurst Farms signed up to be part of a Living Labs research project, an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada initiative intended to adopt sustainable agricultural solutions.
Their farm provided a desirable setting to work with researchers as they operate their dairy farm near a watercourse, they have succession plan in place and they have a good installation for gathering data. Another bonus was that there were women who worked actively on the farm.
Tolhurst met with several researchers before the study's beginning and was anxious for their work to start so she could learn from them. The farm identified two focus projects – manure management and barn air quality.
Without enough land to spread the manure produced by their herd, the Tolhursts export their manure and are looking for new options. The air quality project is particularly close to Tolhurst’s heart.
“I’m also a nurse, and my father-in-law had farmer’s lung so working on air quality and ventilation carries a pretty big significance for me,” she says. “I want to be sure everyone stays as healthy as possible.”
Tolhurst welcomes the feedback from researchers as the projects continue. Insight will go towards long-term improvements on the farm.
“I will use these results to motivate our team to keep up the good work and continue to work towards good habits and thoughtful decisions,” she says.
Still, changing lifelong habits takes time, especially when working in an industry like agriculture, built on stability and routine. But the time for considering change is over, Tolhust says, and it’s time to implement sustainable agricultural solutions that the Living Labs research is working on.
“Our world is in an environmental crisis,” she says. “Everyone lives in this world. Is the dairy community the sole contributor? Absolutely not. Farming and feeding our nation are the grass roots of our country."
“Making thoughtful choices enables us to be the example for those in our sector and in other industries. Illustrating the benefits/rewards of good choices sets up our world for success.”
Focus on family and health
Like many operations, Tolhurst Farms rely on family and temporary foreign workers to run their farm daily. Finding the best mix of family and workers is important to Tolhurst. They have been fortunate to have Guatemalan workers from the same family, returning to work with them for many years.
“We want to make sure everyone gets along and also instill the importance of taking time off,” she says. That means modelling the behaviour themselves to show the benefits of a good work/life balance.
Tolhurst extended that health-first approach into the community by starting a local health co-op to support local healthcare services.
“The co-op focuses on accommodating people in agriculture because they often find it difficult to manage or prioritize their health,” Tolhurst says.
Take the long view
Tolhurst's third key focus area is the bigger holistic view of their farm operation from succession to the work with researchers to improve on best practice for long-term sustainability.
“We consider our whole family to be part of the farm, even if they aren’t all employees,” Amy says. “And one of our values here is guardianship or stewardship of the land – and we all have a passion for the land.”
Tolhurst knows incremental changes are the way to go for every aspect of their farm.
“Changes in degrees often stick better than massive change, and we can chip away at this if we all work together.”
Article by: Jane Robinson
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