If all goes to plan a regenerative agriculture project could be coming home to roost by Spring 2020. Skeena Energy Solutions (SES), a project started by the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition (SWCC), has begun construction on a poultry farm being built with regenerative agriculture in mind.
“With this set-up on 1.5 to 2.5 acres, a single farmer can work three hours a day to produce 4,500 four-pound, free-range chickens in nine months, along with thousands of pounds of nuts, berries, and other cash crops … [translating] to over $80,000 (meat) or $250,000 (eggs) gross income per year, per single plot,” a description of the project provided by SES reads.
The system, referred to as Poultry-Centered Regenerative Agriculture (PCRA) will see 1,500 chickens living in a simple solar-powered coop located near Hazelton on Gitxsan territory.
The chickens — which, although not certified organic will be grown without any additives, antibiotics, herbicides or pesticides — will be given unrestricted access to a series of rotating fenced-in paddock (grazing) areas before the chickens can damage the land by overuse, a common theme of standard, non-regenerative poultry farming.