Farmland Legacies
100 Bosworth St Wynyard, SK, Canada

Check out Farmland Legacies' 2020 Christmas gift catalogue! Please consider giving the gift of grass-fed beef for the hungry to someone you love this Christmas, or make it a part of your year-end giving. Thank you for your support and please share! Catalogue link: https://buff.ly/2XD2W9e

When it comes to sustainable agriculture, farmland drainage can be a challenging issue. Bob Halliday, a consulting Engineer in Saskatoon will be giving a free webinar tomorrow 10:30-11:30 on this important issue. Check it out! https://register.gotowebinar.com/regist/3339092979965449996

Here is a wonderfully thought-provoking 4-minute video on the plight of our grasslands in Saskatchewan, and what we as farmers and eaters can do to help. It is produced by the local group Public Pastures - Public Interest. May we seek to care more deeply for the Earth which sustains us.

Today, we would like to give a big "thank-you" to Drake Meats for partnering with Farmland Legacies' grass fed beef program. We are so grateful for the processing and delivery that they provide. What a great example of a local business helping give back to the community!

Today marks the start of Farmland Legacies' annual World Food Day Appeal. We ask you to consider donating to the Legacy of One program to provide sustainably-raised beef for food banks and soup kitchens in Saskatchewan. With gratitude, The FL Team http://www.farmlandlegacies.org/donate

Leafcutters are a solitary bee. Though they are living in the same hut, they each have their own 1-beedroom apartment. The black shapes on the nesting blocks help orient the bees so they don’t visit their neighbours by mistake. Amazing that each bee can recall where it lives!

If you see large huts in a field along the highway, there is a good chance they are leafcutter bee huts. Each hut contains a number of nesting blocks, which are large Styrofoam blocks with many holes in them. The huts protect the bees from the elements.

Alfalfa! This is what it’s all about. Alfalfa isn’t pollinated well by honey bees, and with larger alfalfa fields, there aren’t enough wild leafcutter bees to pollinate it all. Alfalfa is the plant longest grown specifically for animal feed. alfalfa is known as lucerne in Europe.

Leafcutter bees start their lives in leafy cocoons. They are laid as eggs in their leaf-burritos by their mothers in the summer. The following spring, they hatch and grow, and eat the pollen that their mothers left them. We time their hatching by controlling the temperature.

This week we’ll be sharing some pictures of The Other Herd at the farm. The leafcutter bees! They help support Farmland Legacies’ beef program by improving pasture, and generating income from pollinating alfalfa for other farmers, who can then harvest and sell the alfalfa seed.