FarmStart

Water has increasingly become a crucial economic, political and social issue with municipalities, industry and farmers competing for limited supplies. The harvesting of rain water from barn and house roofs can reduce demand on ground water sources in the irrigation of crops. Systems can be built in a wide range of sizes according to the roof areas involved and the requirement for water.

During the summer of 2006, FarmStart Program Manager Mike Shook, used rain water collected from a drive shed roof to water a quarter acre CSA garden. This small scale harvesting system involved five rain barrels to collect a total of a thousand liters of water from each rain. Larger scale rain harvesting systems are planned for the 2007 season.

Rain barrels were used for irrigation and washing at the Ignatius Incubator Farm.

Rain water collected from the drive shed roof at the left was piped into storage barrels at the edge of the garden (middle distance) for washing and irrigation. These rain barrels were provided by the Guelph International Resource Centre. GIRC builds and sells rain barrels each season as part of their urban water conservation strategy.