Producer Profile: The Road to Fossil Fuel Free Farming with David Rourke

In this episode, we are talking with David Rourke, author of, “A Road to Fossil Fuel Free Farming: An Example and A Challenge." David shares his journey to building the family farm operation, taking on the pursuit of completing a PhD, and his recent book publication.  We discuss some of his farming practices, goals, and the trials he has coming up on the farm in the future.

David and Diane have farmed at Minto Manitoba since 1980, when a chance to rent 300 acres became available. Armed with $4000 and an MSc in Plant Science, and a lot of determination, they raised a family of 4 and are blessed with 9 grandkids. They also grew the farm to 6000 acres and built a contract ag research business. AgQuest grew to have 26 research crews at 5 locations across Western Canada. The Rourke’s have tried many enterprises along the road, including feeding 15,000 pigs/year with an on-farm feed mill and complimentary ethanol plant. They have milked 500 goats and grown high-generation potato seed from tissue-cultured plantlets. They also tried their hand at breeding wheat, corn and soybeans as well as a short stint at organic farming. 

David has a deep interest in finding a solution to eliminating fossil fuel use in the agricultural sector, which is rooted in his care and concern for the earth we are leaving for our future generations. David shares some very powerful thoughts from his book that dives into the question of whether the life we are living is sustainable, and what will be left for our children and grandchildren, if it is not.

We discuss the practices David has identified as unsustainable in the ag industry and his opinion on what it would look like for farms to be truly sustainable, as well as why this is important, both from the global perspective of extreme weather events and the financial perspective, which hits a bit closer to home.

David shares some of his ideas and solutions to becoming fossil fuel free and steps he is taking on his farm to reduce and eliminate emissions and fossil fuel use.  He challenges other producers to think about ways to reduce or eliminate fossil fuel use on their own operations, understanding that this will look different for everyone, but encouraging farmers to start thinking about the topic and being mindful of the effects current practices and fossil fuel use are having on the environment.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of David’s book, you can visit www.fossilfuelfreefarming.com or www.rourkefarms.com, or David welcomes listeners to contact him by phone if that works better and he will get you a copy.  His phone number is 1-204-534-7531.  David’s book is also available in an audio version.

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The research programs and daily operations at MBFI would not be possible without the funding from the Province of Manitoba, Government of Canada, and Canadian Agricultural Partnership, as well as the partnership with Manitoba Agriculture, Manitoba Beef Producers (MBP), Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) and the Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association (MFGA).