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We need your input: risk management for market gardens

Severe weather events, particularly hailstorms, negatively affected market gardens in central Alberta during the summer of 2022. Several operations faced extensive crop damage and have raised concerns about gaps in insurance coverage for market gardens.

We are holding two input advisory group meetings in January to gather information from Alberta’s market garden operators about the risks they face and how risk management programs can be improved to better meet these risks. Currently, market gardens in Alberta are eligible for Straight Hail Insurance, AgriStability and AgriInvest.

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Alberta Honey: A Day at Molenkamp Honey Farms

Video: Alberta Honey: A Day at Molenkamp Honey Farms

When was the last time you read the label on your honey?

We spent a day at Molenkamp Honey Farms with Michael Molenkamp, who has been keeping bees for 17 seasons and runs three to four thousand hives. In mid-September, he was finishing treatments and getting his bees ready for winter, and he walked us through how Alberta honey gets made.

Alberta has just 150 commercial beekeepers running 300,000 colonies, and together they produce 40% of Canada’s honey. Long summer days and golden canola fields give Alberta honey a light flavour that’s hard to match anywhere else.

Molenkamp calls Alberta beekeepers some of the most resilient farmers he knows. There’s plenty of Alberta honey to go around, but a lot on our shelves isn’t from here, so his ask is simple. Give the label a second look and choose honey made by Alberta beekeepers, or buy straight from a beekeeper near you.