OSAFE Wants to Offer Year-Round Organic, Local Produce to NB
Bahram Rangipour sees a gap in our food chain. The Fredericton man, who teaches Mathematics at the University of New Brunswick, is concerned about the difficulty of accessing locally grown organic food during the winter months.
For Rangipour, the problem is more personal than it is commercial: he became interested in organic food as a way to help improve his daughter’s health.
“I have a daughter who was diagnosed with a disability when she was 18 months old. I was scared and disappointed and was trying my best to have a little bit of information on the cause of this disability.
“After doing lots of research, I realized we had trusted the agriculture and food business too much. By recommendation of some great professors we put her on totally organic food.”
Rangipour says that since then, he’s seen a great improvement in his daughter’s health.
It’s a bold claim, and one that might raise some eyebrows. But it does go some way towards explaining why Rangipour remains committed to establishing his farm, in spite of an intense campaign of opposition from the farm’s neighbours in Young’s Cove.
The planned farm, called OSAFE (Organic and Sustainable Atlantic Food and Energy) will run on a system Rangipour has devised – one that he says will have minimal impact on the surrounding environment.
The farm is to be located on ten acres of land in Young’s Cove, and will include a one-acre controlled environment indoor facility. Rangipour plans on raising ducks and fish, though he says that the system he has designed could be used to raise a variety of animals. The foundation has been poured for two greenhouses, which will grow produce including tomatoes and cucumbers.
The farm will be completely chemical-free; Rangipour says that they believe that if the plants are grown naturally, they will be able to fight diseases naturally as well. He says that the plants’ growth will be bolstered with the best compost that they can produce.
“The most important part of our business is to have a true sterilized environment by applying technology and science. We use the latest research to reduce any emissions to acceptable levels. Our system is closed and anything we have as waste will be composted immediately.”
The farm will also feature a bioreactor that will convert duck and fish waste into heat.
It’s heat that Rangipour says has been the obstacle to producing organic food year-round in New Brunswick, with the harsh winters making the cost of heating such an operation prohibitive.
However this bioreactor and Rangipour’s intention to put used tires to work as a source of low-impact insulation has some of his neighbours upset. The Department of Environment and Local Government has said that the use of used tires is an acceptable practice.
In an interview with Global News, Rangipour says that each of the components his farm will use has been tested and is being used elsewhere, including Agrilab in Windsor, Ontario, where they have conducted research into leveraging the heat released during the composting of animal waste into thermal energy that can be used on the farm.
His neighbours’ concerns include the possibility of animal waste entering the nearby lake as a result of heavy rain and snow, something Rangipour says won’t be an issue because the design is a closed ecosystem.
The alternative farmer has also registered for an environment impact assessment relating to his interest in raising tilapia – a warm, fresh water fish that is already farmed in heated tank systems in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Tilapia are omnivorous and according to the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance, farmed tilapia mostly subsist on a low-impact plant-based diet. Because of this, and the fact that they can be farmed with relatively little water turnover, the Aquaculture Industry Alliance describes them as an environmentally sustainable fish.
Farmed tilapia are almost exclusively male. This, combined with the fact that the farmed variety of the fish are typically raised in closed, recirculating tank systems also means that the risk of their invading the surrounding environment is very low.
Rangipour found the site with the help of a friend. Factors including the amount of sun and wind the land gets were part of his decision to select the Young’s Cove property, with wind and solar energy part of Rangipour’s strategy to create a sustainable farm.
Rangipour says that he plans to move to the property with his own family within the next couple of years.
He says that there has been good interest from local shops that would like to carry his farm’s produce once it becomes available, but that down the road they hope to have their own distribution system by store and online delivery.
OSAFE plans to have produce available in early 2016.