On October 1, students in the Butterfield Environment and Sustainability Stream of the Margaret MacMillan Trinity One Program, along with Trinity staff, alumni and Provost Terpstra, woke early to venture north to The New Farm—the first vegetable farm in Canada to be regenerative organic-certified, the highest standard for sustainability, social impact, and animal welfare in the world. We were treated to a tour of the farm, a presentation on The New Farm’s regenerative farming practices and involvement in national policy change as climate action, and an organic lunch.
We were joined by Martha ’63 and George ’61 Butterfield, who have led the way for environmental and sustainability education for more than 30 years. They have also supported experiential learning opportunities at the farm since 2018, which has had a lasting and profound impact on Trinity students throughout their academic and career journeys. And of course, The New Farm’s philosophy aligns perfectly with the ethos of Trinity’s new Lawson Centre for Sustainability.
I attended the event as a work-study for Trinity’s Integrated Sustainability Initiative. I am a Masters of Environment and Sustainability candidate with the School of the Environment (a partner of the Initiative) and a Trinity Ethics, Society and Law alum. Martha Butterfield has been an inspiration to me—she is the writer of Exposure: Environmental Links to Breast Cancer, a documentary film that was screened at an Integrated Sustainability Initiative event co-hosted by the Women’s Healthy Environments Network (WHEN) last January called Wannabe Toxic Free—and seeing her among the cover crops at The New Farm was a dream come true.
I am not the only one who has been inspired by these trips. For Caitie Ciampaglia ’23, her academic and professional journey was sparked by a visit to The New Farm in 2020. She has now begun her Master of Science in Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia pursuing research on organic, regenerative, climate-resilient vegetable production, with a focus on soil health, cover cropping, tillage, and greenhouse gas emissions. “From my first semester in the Trinity One Program and our field trip to The New Farm where we discussed cover crops, I’ve developed a passion for sustainable agriculture—it feels like a full-circle moment!” she says.
For alumni like Caitie and me, the community involved in the Integrated Sustainability Initiative continues to inspire new avenues of research, exciting practical applications outside of the classroom, and multigenerational reflections on our relationship with the land.
“Visits to The New Farm present students with a particularly valuable opportunity for rich learning in integrated interdisciplinary aspects of sustainability,” says Nicole Spiegelaar, a professor in the School of the Environment and Academic Director for Trinity College’s Integrated Sustainability Initiative. “Since 2018 we’ve watched The New Farm grow from a local enterprise experimenting with alternative growing practices and innovative agricultural approaches to a leader and collaborator with farms and farmers across Canada. They are not only growing sustainably; they are collecting data and capturing best practices to enact policy change and empower local communities to take charge of their own food security. What an incredible interdisciplinary example for Trinity’s students to learn from.”
by Honour Stahl VIC ’22 (she/her), Events and Outreach Coordinator, Trinity College’s Integrated Sustainability Initiative, and candidate, Master of Environment and Sustainability, School of the Environment