THE OSIER-WILLOW RIPARIAN BUFFER STRIP

Pierre Lefrançois

Trained into education, humanities and horticulture, I worked as a teacher from grade one to university, as a horticulturist for the city of Montreal, as a self-employed organic farmer, as a journalist specialized in science, health, agriculture and ecology for several journals and magazines; I was editor, editor in chief and publisher. I work with my wife, Paulette Vanier, who is a writer, a translator, a farmer, an osier-willow grower, a basket weaver and a land art artist working with living willow. We live on a small country farm in the province of Quebec (Canada), near the border with Vermont state. We operate here a publishing business, we grow osier-willow and we created a non-profit organization, L’Oseraie riveraine, to develop and implement the concept we are presenting with the present project.

Our aim is to protect our water from agrichemicals that are washed into and pollute creeks, streams, rivers, lakes and ultimately oceans by growing osier-willow on riparian buffers along watercourses that run across agricultural lands. This is a phytoremediation method based on systematic studies and scientific data. We will then create and sell products made with the material harvested; we know and want to demonstrate that it is possible to create economically and environmentally sound local businesses, thus ensuring durability of this depolluting action: revenues from sales of products will pay the farmers for the use of part of their land and create jobs in the community, while preventing pollution and providing a significant carbon sequestration, thus rendering precious ecosystemic services. See straightforward evidence and arguments: https://journalstarmand.com/arguments-and-evidence/

Everywhere in the world, creeks, streams and rivers run across agricultural lands and get polluted by runoff of agrichemicals used to grow and protect crops as well as other contaminants. Potentially heavier runoff and erosion may reduce water quality and cause microbial contamination and outbreaks of waterborne disease by washing animal waste into the water. These watercourses eventually drain into lakes and/or seas/oceans therefore causing massive pollution problems downstream.

One of the major water pollution problem is cyanobacteria, also called blue-green algae, a type of microscopic algae-like bacteria which inhabit freshwater, coastal and marine waters. When a watercourse is saturated with nutrients as nitrate and phosphate, mainly coming from agricultural activity, cyanobacteria colonies develop toxic blooms which are dangerous for fish and mammals, including humans. During the last century, modern agricultural developments created an increasing import of nutrients into the watercourses. Despite efforts to reduce this import of nutrients in the ecosystems, cyanobacteria blooms are still a major problem in agricultural areas, all over the world, with very serious impacts on drinking water, aquatic fauna and recreative aquatic activities. Phosphate is not the only water pollution problem, but it is by far the main one we must face.

Researchers have found that a riparian buffer strip can filter out sediments and agrichemicals that might otherwise enter field runoff. Researchers also found that willow trees and shrubs planted along the banks are particularly efficient in performing that filtering task. Besides, willow shrubs – like other woody plants – prevent soil erosion and sequester carbon in their trunk, their roots and in the soil around the roots. And that sequestration action is maintained throughout the life of willow made products.

In many countries/states, farmers are required by law to leave a buffer strip (or riparian buffer) along the edges of any watercourse that runs across their land. The width of this buffer strip varies depending on the country/state. But for many researchers/environmentalists, the width of the buffer strip is usually not enough to filter the runoff of the fields upstream. Farmers are reluctant to widen their buffer strips because every square foot of land not used for growing crops is wasted in terms of revenue/profit, unless they have a financial incentive so that a wide buffer strip becomes an advantage and not a loss. This is what we provide. This has simply never been done before.

Properly implemented in a given watershed, THE OSIER-WILLOW RIPARIAN BUFFER STRIP provide services to humans living in the area in several domains: public health by depolluting drinking water sources, fisheries by insuring health of aquatic fauna, touristic and leisure activities by protecting the integrity of watercourses.

Although our project can be applied to any part of the northern hemisphere (willows generally don’t grow in the south) where watercourses run across agricultural lands, we have chosen to focus on Lake Champlain Basin because it is the area where we have our activities and because it is one of the biggest lakes in North America, heavily polluted by agricultural runoffs coming from the many farms on the territory, mainly growing corn and soy.

Lake Champlain Basin encompasses 8224 square miles: 56% located in Vermont State (USA), 37% in New York State (USA) and 7% in Quebec (Canada). Approximately 200,000 people draw drinking water directly from the lake. The sub-watershed of the Missisquoi Bay area is by far the main source of phosphorous imports in the whole Lake Champlain. This is our first target, but we intend to implement such a system on a very large scale wherever it is possible.

Implementing THE OSIER-WILLOW RIPARIAN BUFFER STRIP project will necessitate the awareness, the good will and the dedicated implication of a lot of  farmers, national, local and municipal politicians, public administration technocrats and simple citizens.  We will have to explain the project, and introduce lots of new ideas to all these people. We will need to raise their awareness about how this project could both allow us to grow food AND protect the ecosystems that are the ground of sustainable development. We will want to arouse action, have them take action.

In 1989, I was working as an horticulturist for the city of Montreal when was constructed a beach with water, drawn from the Saint Lawrence River, filtered by plants in constructed marshes spread out into a set of three ponds. This was my first encounter with phytoremediation.

In 2006, my wife Paulette started growing osier-willow on our small farm in Saint-Armand. She discovered a huge corpus of studies about the use of willows in phytoremediation.

In 2014, I wrote a series of articles about the pollution of Missisquoi Bay in Lake Champlain in our area and I realized that the strategies implemented since the last 20 years to reduce the imports of phosphorous in the waters were a failure.

This is when Paulette had the vision of THE OSIER-WILLOW RIPARIAN BUFFER STRIP.

THE OSIER-WILLOW RIPARIAN BUFFER STRIP as a remediation ecotechnology is a totally new concept. Willows are commonly used to depollute contaminated soils, grey waters from industrial and residential sources, or as biomass production for energy purposes, but nobody ever suggested to grow osier-willow on the shores of watercourses, in agricultural fields of corn and soy, a major source of phosphates.

In fact, 80 % of the phosphate annually imported in Missisquoi Bay comes from those corn and soy crops. For the farmers, replacing part of these corn and soy crops by wide willow buffer strips for biomass purposes will represent an inacceptable lost of benefits. It is just not profitable.

Growing osier-willow, developing small businesses to weave the osier into all sorts of design objects could generate enough revenues to pay off the farmers for the space used as buffer strip.

For Paulette and I, to explain this concept, to convince farmers, politicians, public administration technocrats and simple citizens, is quite exiting because we both were trained in education and in communication. This is what we want to do.

In the recent years, we can witness a significant revival of traditional arts and crafts around basketry and osier weaving all over the world. Workshops are being offered to rediscover this knowhow in England, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Japan, Chili, USA, Canada, etc. Professional designers are developing products using these materials and traditional techniques. Land artists are using living willow to make living fences and all sorts of living structures in public and private spaces. This craze create a very fertile context for THE OSIER-WILLOW RIPARIAN BUFFER STRIP project.

Today’s young adults, as well as the following generations, are extremely sensitive to environmental and ecological concerns. Awareness of the necessity to change the way we manage our environment, the way we grow our foods, how we manage our industries, our commercial activities, the protection of soil, air, water, and all sorts of ecosystems. The current climatic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic are just reinforcing this growing awareness within the population.

The timing seems to be right for the integration of phytoremediation into agricultural approaches.  

As a young mother, my wife Paulette founded the first organization to promote organic agriculture in the province of Québec, the Mouvement pour l’Agriculture biologique (MAB). At the time, in mid-70’s, organic agriculture was merely inexistent and farmers were even aggressively opposed to this idea. However, she patiently went ahead and confronted the mainstream agriculture, slowly imposing the idea of organic agriculture.

Sixteen years ago, a small group of people created a local community newspaper in our village. Paulette and I decided to join and work with them. After a couple of years, most of the founders were discouraged and ready to stop the venture there because we did not have support of the population and of the local authorities. I stepped in, organizing public meetings to raise awareness in the community and looking for funding to grow the business and insure it’s sustainability. Nowadays, this paper is still published in a community of 10 rural municipalities and is considered as an established institution.

As a young mother, my wife Paulette founded the first organization to promote organic agriculture in the province of Québec, the Mouvement pour l’Agriculture biologique (MAB). At the time, in mid-70’s, organic agriculture was merely inexistent and farmers were even aggressively opposed to this idea. However, she patiently went ahead and confronted the mainstream agriculture, slowly imposing the idea of organic agriculture.

Sixteen years ago, a small group of people created a local community newspaper in our village. Paulette and I decided to join and work with them. After a couple of years, most of the founders were discouraged and ready to stop the venture there because we did not have support of the population and of the local authorities. I stepped in, organizing public meetings to raise awareness in the community and looking for funding to grow the business and insure it’s sustainability. Nowadays, this paper is still published in a community of 10 rural municipalities and is considered as an established institution.