From beginning with just small test plots, to having more than half of their current land base as an intercrop, the Whites say their farming journey has been all about learning from nature.

Fifth generation farmers, Brooks and Jen White call the deep southwest corner of Manitoba — near the town of Pierson — home. Crops they grow include winter wheat, rye, oats, corn, soybeans, faba beans, peas, canola, hemp, lentils, and sunflowers.

For intercrops, it varies, but a big crop they have found that works is a pea and canola mixture which they dub ‘peola’. On the other hand, faba beans and lentils were a no-go, they say.

“That was a small scale trial, but basically faba beans thrive in a wet environment, and lentils thrive in a dry environment, so I thought (by mixing in the two) it’s going to work — it would self-insure,” Brooks says.