The Coffee Company that Wants Us All to be on Level Ground Darcy Smith Can coffee be sustainable? If you have ever asked this question about your morning cuppa, you are not alone. It’s a question Stacey Toews, co-founder of Level Ground Coffee Roasters, gets all the time. People “feel helpless in the global machine,”… Keep Reading
Anna Helmer Well, on the other hand, when a major crop flops, the harvest isn’t going to amount to much and that frees up a certain amount of time… Welcome to my head space right now: consumed with our carrot crop catastrophe. You’ve joined me at a positive moment in the endless cycle of despair… Keep Reading
Emma Holmes As BC’s organic industry specialist, I have been able to meet many members of our organic community across the province. I also get to collaborate with other experts at the Ministry of Agriculture, and am keen to highlight them and the important work they do, so you can get to know them—and hopefully… Keep Reading
Karen Fenske My husband and I were told in our late 20s that we would need $1.7 million to retire. We were shocked, we chuckled, we talked about what we wanted in life, and then we lived it. It is a complex process to provide a useful answer to how much money you will need… Keep Reading
Neither Bored Nor Lonely Collaboration & Community By Moss Dance On a sunny day in light spring, I called up Heather Stretch at Northbrook Farm for a chat. The sun was shining in WSÁNEC territory on the Saanich Peninsula, and I could hear that she was busy working on something in the background while we… Keep Reading
By Brynn Hughes The Glen Valley Organic Farm in Abbotsford, run by the Glen Valley Organic Farm Co-operative (GVOFC), sits on 50 acres of prime agriculture land. The Co-op purchased the organic farm in 1998, and today it hosts two organic vegetable businesses across twelve acres, twenty-two acres of peat bog pasture, and eight acres… Keep Reading
By Emma Holmes As BC’s organic industry specialist, I have been able to meet many members of our organic community across the province. I also get to collaborate with other experts at the Ministry of Agriculture, and am keen to highlight them and the important work they do, so you can get to know them—and… Keep Reading
By Darcy Smith When Bill Balakshin’s grandparents planted their first (and only) crop of potatoes in 1925 on a parcel of land in Chilliwack, they could not have imagined what lay ahead for the farm. Ninety-eight years and four generations later, New Siberia Farms is a bridge from the past—and to the future. While the… Keep Reading
By the National Farmers Union For decades, Canada’s farm numbers have been going down, farm size has been increasing, and more farms have come to rely on hired workers as a consequence. The ongoing loss of farms and the current shortage of farm labour have the same root cause: a cost-price squeeze that results in… Keep Reading
Digging into Community Darcy Smith Mel Sylvestre has been farming for almost 20 years, and she’s pretty sure she’ll never run out of lessons learned. From last year’s heat dome, to this year’s cold, wet weather, to figuring out just what type of kale customers want, every farming season brings new challenges—and new opportunities. She… Keep Reading
