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Organic Stories: Level Ground Coffee, WSANEC Territory

in 2023/Climate Change/Crop Production/Current Issue/Fall 2023/Grow Organic/Marketing/Organic Community/Organic Stories

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,” says Stacey. But one of the great joys of his work is getting to show people that “you are largely in the driver’s seat when it comes to coffee.”

At least, he clarifies, if it’s organic. He’s done the math: “with what goes into the life of coffee, from an emissions standpoint you can’t redeem coffee grown using chemicals.”

After a year of living and volunteering in Asia, Level Ground was born out of Stacey’s desire to “have a life purpose that would be aimed at bringing possibility and abundance into circumstances that looked dire and difficult.” The day he returned to Canada, Stacey met his wife and Level Ground co-founder Laurie Klassen, who shared his drive to “level the playing field,” says Stacey.

“At the simplest level, often life isn’t fair,” says Stacey. “Global trade is tipped in favour of a certain group.” This led to the premise of Level Ground: “we asked ourselves, ‘How do we run a business that creates positive impact from inception?’ We wanted to have a positive social impact with farmers who could be our partners, and with consumers.” Coffee was an ideal product because people reach for it each morning: “People can say, my daily rhythms have a positive effect.”

Level Ground staff help load coffee headed from the co-op to export in Peru. Credit: Level Ground Coffee Roasters.

Now 27 years old, Level Ground has what Stacey describes as “a pretty unique mix” of a business model: global connections for sourcing, a local roasting facility and tasting room in Central Saanich BC, and distribution to everywhere from universities, high end restaurants and cafes, and grocery stores.

Level Ground’s approach from the onset has been to humanize trade. “There are real people producing the everyday consumables of life,” says Stacey. “Any way we can make it less about an economic choice, and more a human decision, the more we can flavour the idea that sustainable, mindful global consumption can be powerful and positive.”

“We jumped into the fair-trade approach from inception in the late ‘90s,” Stacey says, “with the primary driving aim of providing coffee growers with a stable income that recognizes the living wage needed for a small-scale farming family to make a go of it.” Level Ground buys a million pounds of coffee annually, sourced from 5,000 small-scale farming families, who are members of 12 co-operatives. Each farming co-op can have 200 to 2,000 farmers in a common geographic region, where the climate is similar. Most of the farmers are cultivating under 10 acres.

The farmers Level Ground works with belong to progressive co-ops, and are using organic and permaculture techniques to produce the precious coffee berry. Coffee is grown on steep slopes at a high elevation, requiring a cool climate in otherwise equatorial, hot countries. The coffee cherry is the primary crop, growing on trees spaced a couple metres apart and reaching heights of two metres. Like other fruit crops, it takes two to five years to start harvesting the coffee berries once seedlings are planted. The berry has to ripen slowly to develop the precious fats and oils that give coffee its distinctive flavour.

Stacey Toews visiting with a small-scale coffee grower in Peru. Credit: Level Ground Trading.

While coffee berries are harvested over a period of a few weeks, coffee trees have needs throughout the year-long production cycle: shade, mulch on ground, organic compost, pruning, ideally right after harvest has ended.

“There are a lot of challenges to small-scale coffee farmers being organic,” Stacey says. Some of these will sound familiar to farmers in BC: neighbouring practices, lack of resources, a difficult transition period where yields may be lower without the premium organic price to make up the difference.

“Fertilizer is big driver of productivity of plants,” says Stacey. “Farmers who move away from fertilizer will see their yields go down. When the message coming from consumers is ‘Be organic, you guys who grow our food,’ that can be interpreted as ‘You want us to make less money’.” Even with the premium price of organic coffee, organic may not pay as well if there are fewer pounds to sell.

The steeply-sloped terrain provides one challenge to organic production: “Imagine having a compost pile and during the rainy season all the nutrients just wash away,” Stacey says. To solve this problem, farmers dig pits for their compost. Another creative practice employed by organic growers: coffee trees require shade, so farmers will plant nitrogen-fixing leguminous trees spaced throughout their coffee trees. Not only do they provide the much-needed shade, they also offer mulch, a habitat for birds, and through their roots one healthy tree can put a tonne of nitrogen into the soil per year.

The co-ops have agricultural technicians who work with the farmers to develop methodology that will result in higher yields and a better-quality crop through organic practices. These technicians will often visit member farms at critical points in the growing cycle. Stacey says this allows them to become familiar with on-the-ground challenges: erosion, pests, disease, pruning and mulching techniques. “The collective wisdom from a handful of technicians visiting the 1,000 plus farmers in any given co-op hones their knowledge of what is, or isn’t working at different elevations, including the best varietals of coffee to plant.”

Brewing up fresh espresso at the Level Ground tasting room. Credit: Maylies Lang.

Once the berries are harvested, farmers are on a tight timeline. The ripe red coffee berries are brought to the co-op’s shared infrastructure, where they must be pulped the same day of harvest. Then, the coffee berry, with pulp removed, is fermented for 18 to 24 hours as naturally occurring bacteria in the air break down the exterior mucous coating of the berry. The fermented seeds are then dried in the sun, before being prepared for shipping.

Coffee usually starts to ship from a co-op three months after harvest ends, giving the co-op time to focus on processing the ripe berries. The next stage is all about sorting, sampling, and quality control in order to fulfill contracts arranged well before harvest.

Stacey describes the procedure for sampling: “when they have a prospective lot of coffee designed to fill a shipping container and go to Level Ground, they use a hollow metal tool and stab every sack so that a few beans come out.” The resulting 700-gram sample is representative of every sack. Half of the sample stays at co-op, and the other half is sent to Level Ground, so the roasters can look at the green product and check for any defects. They then do a very light roast and “cup” it to get a quality score. At the sample stage, “we use the lightest roast to not cover up the characteristics of the beans, both bad and good,” Stacey says. This gives them the most insight on the beans’ potential and cup score. If everything checks out, the co-op will prepare a full shipment.

The Level Ground roasting facility in Saanichton, BC. Credit: Maylies Lang.

“Every coffee cherry is hand-picked. There are two beans from each cherry, handled manually or mechanically to be processed, and cupped and scored by the co-ops lab and Level Ground,” before arriving by ship, Stacey says. “We open the doors of each shipment to several hundred families contributing to what’s in a container.”

The annual coffee harvest is the primary, if not only, crop for which these families are receiving cash. The world price for specialty coffee is traded per pound in US currency. “The price is noted hour to hour each business day,” says Stacey. “In our company’s history, I’ve seen it be as low as 40 cents and as high as three dollars for one pound of coffee. It’s generally a volatile market.”

Stacey emphasizes that travel doesn’t always make a product unsustainable. It’s a common misconception, he says. “There is far more carbon footprint adding milk to coffee than the coffee itself. You can drink five americanos or drip coffees for every latte.” Level Ground buys full containers to get the most efficient inbound shipping via container ship. The footprint of inbound coffee is one sixth that of outbound trucking of roasted coffee, says Stacey.

While the farmers are doing their part to grow organically, Level Ground works on sustainability in their own community. Their new facility and patented roasting technology, which recaptures heat used in destroying volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced as part of the roasting process, has allowed them to reduce their natural gas usage by 43 percent.

“I feel pretty confident to say, if you’re living in BC and buying coffee from Level Ground, all our steps and procedures result in it being the most sustainable coffee in the marketplace,” says Stacey.

The world has changed since Level Ground roasted its first bean back in the late ‘90s, and, while the core values have remained the same, Level Ground is changing with it. Like many others, Stacey describes the inevitable pivot during Covid-19: “Much of what had been a backbone of our business evaporated in a two week stretch, and many of them have never come back to being what they were before.” He continues, “What’s become normal to us is a crazy amount of adaptation that I would never have foreseen two to three years ago.”

Stacey has also witnessed a trend over the last decade to single-serve coffee. “After years of the quality of coffee improving, convenience became the key.” That means the drive to produce quality coffee decreases in favour of convenience. But Level Ground, as a “pro-farmer voice” in the coffee industry, “wants to find high-quality accessible coffee”—the best of both worlds. This tier of coffee is also the bulk of what farmers can produce, meaning it’s the best bet to get the farmers a living wage.

On the production side, there is “huge unpredictability on farms,” says Stacey. As is the case everywhere, “farmers are aging, and the climate is changing.” The elevation required for the coffee trees keeps getting higher. “Arabica coffee is running out of real estate,” says Stacey. “If grandpa and grandma had a great location, and the third generation is now farming, they may be below the optimal elevation.” Arabica is also susceptible to new pests and disease.

“So much has changed,” Stacey emphasizes. “Our model for purchasing coffee, of working with community, of managing teams—we didn’t have a grid for what we’re doing now on so many levels.”

And while the only constant in the future might be constant change, Stacey is optimistic: “Ultimately our goal is more farmers, more hope, more possibility. I have a friend who says, ‘The person with the most hope in the room controls the narrative.’ If our approach is about fairness, respect, honouring others, and sustainability, most people will say, ‘That’s the community I want to live in’.”

levelground.com

Darcy Smith is the editor of the BC Organic Grower, and a huge fan of organic farmers. She also manages the BC Land Matching Program delivered by Young Agrarians.

Featured image: Coffee bean processing at Level Ground Coffee Roasters. Credit: Maylies Lang.

 

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Biodynamic Farm Story: Where Anna Anticipates Some Free Time (Questionably)

in 2023/Current Issue/Fall 2023/Land Stewardship/Organic Community/Standards Updates

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 and future free time optimism. Stick around and we’ll get right back to wallowing in the carrot field of broken dreams, where I am often to be found pacing through the sparse carrot stand feeling bewildered and disappointed, trying to unravel the mystery. Eventually I wander far enough towards the east end of the field where things are not nearly so bad, and the mood improves. Not to the point of giddy elation, mind you—just a sort of contented, if somewhat resigned, reflection on all the free time coming my way.

It won’t be free time, in the strictest sense. I won’t be wandering around with nothing to do all fall. The time will be filled, allocated to something other than carrot harvesting and washing—perhaps directed at a variety of farm projects. I also may binge-watch a season of something instead of just watching the first episode and then googling the outcome, for lack of time. Oops. That was meant to be kept private, but here you are still following along my inner journey.

Sounds quite fun, doesn’t it, puttering about? I hope I don’t start a rush to declare crop flops to generate free time. There must be another way, but it hasn’t presented itself. Feel free to try it out on your own farm. Results may vary.

And it’s not like there are no carrots at all in the field. I think half the crop will make it to harvest. That is still quite a bit as we connived to plant a larger area this year, without admitting to it. Plenty of carrots to harvest, which happens to be my favourite farm job of fall. As I mentioned earlier, I haven’t figured out what happened to the other half. The possibilities are myriad, and I won’t go into all the details here unless I need to boost my word count.

I think this column is still called Biodynamic Farm Story and I really ought to stick to the mission. I am having trouble getting to the Biodynamic bits because biodynamics always gets kicked to the curb when the farm is particularly extremely busy, as has been the case this summer.

Most of the summer was spent with me making a strong case for auntie of the year honours: nieces and nephews galore on the farm. Most of them teenagers. Not much intrinsically biodynamic about teenagers. They were eager to work, though, so I helped with that. And they added a lot of youthful energy to the farm, compelling me to contribute a fair amount of middle-aged lady energy to balance it all out. Draining.

That effort was nothing, however, compared to wallowing through the process of achieving our CanadaGAP certification. This was a very distinctly non-Biodynamic effort. We are now awash in hand-sanitizing wipes, spotless harvest bins, and signs, including a “No Smoking” sign on the inside of the cooler door. And we now have over 30 active forms. Rudolph Steiner never mentioned anything about forms.

I am burying the following comment deep in the article as it is still quite an incomplete private thought: we are a better farm for having gone through the CanadaGAP certification process. I still think it’s a travesty of food safety justice that an essentially harmless little farm like ours is required to slog through the same process as a massive producer who needs help keeping the listeria and E.coli off the leafy greens, not to mention actually requiring a no-smoking-in-the-cooler sign.

However, there have been many unanticipated side benefits, coming because of the hours we spent striving to comply. We did a major clean-up, and that has helped considerably with not only airflow, but also freeing up all kinds of space in which to put things. We have better lighting now, the importance of which, for those possessing deteriorating eyesight, cannot be overstated. Our handwashing and toilet facilities are dialled, and I think our crew really appreciates this effort.

It must be said, however, that it all came at the expense of farming, especially the carrot farming. Instead of irrigating the heck out of them to get the pelleting to dissolve, I was going to the dump and reading the CanadaGAP manual. Instead of spending hours setting up the mechanical weeder to do the best job possible, I was going to the dump again, stencilling pallet numbers on the cooler floor, or printing and laminating signs. Instead of doing the one pivotal hand weeding that became necessary, I was carefully accumulating and sorting forms and checklists into piles called Ongoing, Weekly, Monthly, and Annual.

And instead of diligently and regularly applying BD 500 and BD 501, which I should have realized early in the season were going to be required to help the crop contend with heat, smoke, drought, and inattentive farming practices, I was just plain otherwise occupied. I found it very hard to tear my mind away from what seemed like daily new CanadaGAP compliance conundrums, discovered as we deciphered the manual or performed the latest self-audit.

So, it all boils down to this: I am not too disappointed over the reduced carrot yield. We’ll sort it out financially, and the crop we have will still allow me to enjoy my favourite job of fall. Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like work.

I’m being positive again. How annoying.

helmersorganic.com

Anna Helmer farms in Pemberton and is not sure she would have been able to handle this summer in her 30s.

Featured image: Some acceptable carrots. Credit: Moss Dance

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Meet the Ministry: Amy Norgaard

in Climate Change/Current Issue/Fall 2023/Meet the Ministry/Organic Community/Organic Standards/Soil

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 collaborate with them too! This issue, I interviewed Amy Norgaard, the Ministry’s Climate Change Extension Specialist.

Emma Holmes (EH): Hey Amy, I’m excited to be talking to you today! Let’s kick things off. When did you join the ministry and what is your role?

Amy Norgaard (AN): Thanks for having me. I love sharing about my work. I joined the ministry two years ago and my role is climate change extension specialist.

EH: You studied at UBC’s Faculty of Land and Food Systems. What were your favourite classes from your time there?

AN: Yes, I was at UBC for quite a few years. My bachelor’s is in agroecology and my master’s degree is in soil science with a focus on nutrient management on organic vegetable farms. In terms of my favorite classes, it’s hard to choose one!

When I think about my time at UBC, I mostly think about the experiential learning approach, where I was working with either community partners or on a research project or on problem-based case studies that have been created for active learning. But I think there’s two classes that I’d probably choose as my favourites.

My very first soil science class, Soils 200, was life changing. Maybe that is an overstatement, but at that point in time I was still trying to figure out what I was doing and why I was studying agriculture. Taking that soil science class changed my trajectory and definitely is why I am here now, as a soil scientist so many years later. I just felt like that class explained so much about how the world works.

EH: The class was life changing for me too. It got me excited about soil science and put me on my current career path.

AN: Yeah, it was a pivotal class for so many people. It really was.

The other class was a directed studies during my undergrad, which basically meant I chose a topic of study and I created my own learning goals. I didn’t actually have a course to attend. Instead, I spent half of my time at the UBC farm looking after the chickens and collecting and washing eggs and getting them ready for sale. And moving the chickens and rotating them through both their paddock and then following the vegetable rotation. And the other half of my time was doing a literature review about the benefits of rotational integration of poultry into vegetable production systems, in terms of economics, animal welfare, and impacts to soil properties like nutrient cycling.

And as part of that, I did interviews with producers who were rotating poultry in their vegetable fields. I’m grateful that producers shared their time and knowledge with me. I was just a young undergraduate looking to talk to some farmers about their experiences and challenges and I remember after those interviews I sent each of them a handwritten thank you card with 20 bucks of my own cash in it. Because of course, I didn’t have a stipend from the university. It wasn’t much but I’m always appreciative of people who are willing to share their time and knowledge.

EH: That was thoughtful of you. And then you did your masters and worked quite closely with several organic farms. Tell me more about that.

AN: So my master’s project started in 2018 and I worked with 20 producers across three different regions: Pemberton Valley, Vancouver Island, and the Fraser Valley. I did two years managing on-farm trials of three different nutrient management strategies. Jordan Marr interviewed me on the Organic BC podcast so people who are interested in more details about the project should check that out.

Throughout my research I really got to know the producers well. I visited their farms about four times a year for two years. I used to make this joke “the only person who’s busier than a farmer in the spring is the researcher who’s trying to chase 20 farmers to align with when they’re applying nutrients and when they’re plowing and planting.”

This project just deepened my respect for how knowledgeable and creative farmers are. They’re always doing their own research and testing out new changes, even if they don’t call it research. It really reinforced that support for food producers is not a top-down process. It’s not that knowledge is held in institutions, like universities or government, and that we need to come in and share information. It’s about sharing between producers, academics, and agrologists. Everybody has a different piece of the puzzle and our role, as a researcher or an agrologist, is to create tools or resources or ways to think about things that help producers do their work. That could be an online tool or researching a new practice that a producer is interested in, or a wildfire preparedness planning guide. It is any or all of those pieces. Producers already have so much of this knowledge and capacity, and it’s just helping them put all the pieces together or give them a missing piece. Or maybe setting up farmer-to-farmer gathering opportunities so they can glean those important lessons learnt from each other.

EH: Ministry agrologists have diverse roles, and your title, climate change agrologist could be interpreted quite broadly. Can you speak a bit to some of your current projects?

AN: Yeah, of course. I would say given the fact that my area of work is “climate change,” which in itself is quite broad, I definitely have a variety of projects. My projects right now range from program reporting, greenhouse gas emissions research, farm and ranch wildfire resiliency planning, and we’re also just starting a knowledge translation project to help move research from the hands of academics or researchers into the hands of producers, in a way that works better for producers.

That last one is a smaller project, but I think it has the ability to kind of scale up over time and be really impactful in the long term. We’re creating a process for research briefs that researchers at universities and other extension agrologists can use to succinctly and effectively translate their research in a standardized way and in language that makes sense to that target audience. The goal is to make agricultural research more accessible and useful to producers.

I laugh when I think about the extension products I created when I was finishing my masters. I think this templated process would have helped me to translate my research more effectively, and will help future researchers going forward.

And of course, linking those briefs to any podcasts, videos, or other relevant resources.

EH: What makes you excited about your work?

AN: My goal, or what would make me so happy, is a situation where I’m at a conference or at a field day, and I overhear producers talking about a tool or resource I’ve developed, and they’re saying how it’s made their day-to-day a little bit easier or has had a positive impact on their operation in some way. It’s not that I need the credit for it, I just want to feel like all these hours I spend at work might actually be making a difference!

Emma Holmes is the Organics Industry Specialist with the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food. She studied Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Science at UBC, and then farmed on Salt Spring and worked on a permaculture homestead on Orcas Island. She now lives in Vernon and loves spending time in the garden. She can be reached at: Emma.Holmes@ gov.bc.ca

Featured image: Amy Norgaard in the field. Credit: Garnett Grove

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The Right Question is: How Much Do You Want to Spend?

in 2023/Ask an Expert/Current Issue/Fall 2023/Organic Community

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 to for retirement. “What AMOUNT do you need to retire?” is the wrong question. A better, simpler start to retirement planning is to develop a conversation that you revisit annually using facts and your best guess.

Contemplate these questions with your partner, a blank piece of paper, or me:

Your Values

  • If you value family and relationships you may choose to help your adult children and grandchildren. How much will you give them and when? Will you let them live with you or you will pay for family vacations or swimming lessons or ski passes?
  • Do you value fitness, health, leisure, etc.? Will you buy new skates, beach towels, skis, clubs, kayaks, e-bikes, or a cottage on a fishing lake?
  • Maybe you value taking care of your aging parents. Will you spend time cutting their lawn, taking them on holidays with you or ensuring you have a home where you can all live?

Your Dreams

  • You hope for a beautiful, new home built on your property/acerage while your kids take over your farm/operation. How will you achieve this?
  • Do you want to travel the globe and ride camels, or roam across Canada? Will you stay in hostels or resorts? Do you need a new RV or a “previously owned” version?
  • A new workshop with all the bells and whistles is in your future. What do you want to spend on this?
  • A beautiful smaller empty nest is on the horizon. What do you need to spend to prepare your home for sale? What will you have in your savings account once all is said and done?

Your Debt

  • Will you roll into retirement with a mortgage? For how long?
  • Will you have credit cards bills, car loans and lines of credit to pay?

Your Health

  • What are your personal habits and your genetics? Will you live to 100 or not?
  • Will you need to consider the cost of a senior residence and/or long-term care?
  • You may be in tip-top shape and perfectly healthy but accidents happen, and the gradual progression of some diseases will impact your finances.

Your Goals

  • Do you have them written down? Have you researched them? Have you put a price tag on them and put them on a timeline? You can.

While you do not have complete control of how life rolls out, you do have control over the choices you make which will result in having more or less to live on. Our plans for retirement have been adjusted a few times with more or less in the picture—and you will still find us Sunday afternoons talking about what the future could look like.

fenskefinancialcoaching.com

Karen Fenske is the founder of Fenske Financial Coaching. She uses all the experience, education, and skills in her toolbelt to help improve the financial well-being ofher clients. The goals of sustaining organizations and BC agriculture continue to be dear to her heart.

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Organic Stories: Northbrook Farm, WSANEC Territory

in 2023/Grow Organic/Land Stewardship/Marketing/Organic Community/Organic Stories/Spring/Summer 2023

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 dove into her story of farming, collaboration, community, and the organic movement.

Heather Stretch is a well-known figure in the organic world—she recently served on the Organic BC board as president, building on her 23-year history of collaborative farming. Northbrook Farm is one of the three farms that make up Saanich Organics, along with Three Oaks Farm (Rachel Fisher), just down the road in Saanichton, and Sea Bluff Farm (Robin Tunnicliffe), a little further afield in Metchosin.

The trio of farmers who began Saanich Organics (Heather Stretch, Rachel Fisher, and Robin Tunnicliffe) have been active in the organic community for many years. They also wrote a book called All the Dirt: Reflections on Organic Farming, which is part memoir, part practical guide for beginning farmers.

Sarah Mastromonaco and Steven Hung in the fields. Credit: Maylies Lang.

The spirit of cooperation that infuses Heather’s work is in full bloom at Northbrook Farm. The total size of the property is 20 acres—Heather and her spouse Lamont co-own the land with Heather’s aunt and uncle, Brian and Jane Stretch. On the land, buzzing like a hive of productive bees, businesses and farming friends flourish. Northbrook Farm comprises seven acres of the property, and the land is shared with Square Root Farm, an organic vegetable operation run by Chrystal Bryson and Ilya Amhrein. Rebecca’s Garden, run by Rebecca Jehn, also has a large plot to grow some warmer climate seed crops at Northbrook Farm. Brian and Jane Stretch have a plot where they grew cut flowers for many years—they now lease this area to Mayan Vered, of Flowerface Farm. Finally, Saanich Organics has a shared plot on the land, including a large greenhouse, affectionately named Long John, or LJ for short.

Of all of the agreements she has with farmers on the land, the lease arrangement with Rebecca’s Garden is Heather’s favourite: “no money changes hands at all,” she says. “Once a year, Rebecca brings me some preserves, and if it’s been a good seed year, she’ll bring me some seed, and we always have an amazing feast.”
With all of this activity, and all of these people on the land, I asked Heather what day-to-day life is like on the farm. Heather says she’s “neither bored, nor lonely.”

The Roots of Northbrook Farm

It wasn’t until Heather was in her early twenties with a freshly-minted English degree that she realized farming would be a great career for her. “Most people would assume that someone who starts an organic farm had a pre-existing passion for growing. In my case, that came later.” Heather writes in All the Dirt: Reflections on Organic Farming. “My uncle offered me land to farm, and until that moment, I had never considered farming. From the moment he mentioned it, though, it seemed like a perfect fit for me.”

Misty morning at Northbrook Farm. Credit: Maylies Lang.

The promise of working outdoors, growing food, an environmentally sustainable career, and the ability to include family in her work life convinced Heather to accept her Uncle Brian’s offer. When she met her husband Lamont, she says, “the poor guy fell in love with a woman who already had a plan.” Luckily, Lamont decided to move from North Carolina to the Saanich Peninsula with Heather to pursue her dream of farming.

“I had the great good fortune to have free land to farm for my first three years,” writes Heather. “Lamont and I decided to buy my grandmother’s portion of the land that we now share with my aunt and uncle. Fortunately, she gave us a great deal, because otherwise we probably wouldn’t have been able to afford to buy land in this area.”

Northbrook Farm’s name is a nod to Lamont’s lineage. Northbrook is a region of rural North Carolina where his father was born, and it also suits the sunny parcel of land with a brook running through it.

Trust Equals Success

Saanich Organics was founded by Heather, Robin, and Rachel’s farmer mentors, Tina Baynes and Rebecca Jehn. Heather, Robin, and Rachel purchased the business from their mentors in the early 2000s.

Sales are conducted through a CSA program, restaurants, and grocery stores. Saanich Organics’ marketing strategy has evolved with the growth of everyone’s life situations and land base. For example, Heather says, Robin moved out to Sea Bluff Farm about 10 years ago—a huge size upgrade from her original one-acre plot. “There were some adjustments there to figure out how to increase sales,” says Heather, “and we had to figure out how the business would work when the contributing farms were at very different scales.” Navigating big changes in a collectively-owned business isn’t easy, and Heather points to trust, friendship, and communication as important factors in managing growth and transition.

Green beans ready to harvest. Credit: Maylies Lang.

The Saanich Organics team have come up with a creative solution to account for the different scale of production at each of their member farms. Sea Bluff Farm has a very popular farm stand in Metchosin, so Robin also has the ability to market extra produce on her own. Rachel and Heather attend the Moss Street and James Bay Markets in Victoria. This helps to evenly distribute the marketing according to the scale of each farm. When needed, Heather and Rachel will occasionally send products to sell on the Sea Bluff Farm stand.

“Twenty-two years into our business partnership, we certainly trust each other’s intentions,” Heather says. “Obviously, we disagree sometimes, and we may question each other’s decisions—but the one thing we never do is question each other’s intention behind the decision.” The foundation of Saanich Organics is friendship, and the clarity of trust and relationship is the spring that has fed the business over two decades.

Support & Mentorship

In the early years, Heather found support from the organic community, her husband, family, and business partners. She got involved with Islands Organic Producers’ Association (IOPA), and as she moved through the certification process, she found support in the organic standards.

“When I started farming, the certification system gave me a framework to learn about what organic production was, and to learn what best practices were,” says Heather. “The framework of the standards was my first primer on how to make choices to manage fertility and soil health.”

Going through the certification process and getting involved with IOPA brought other benefits as well. “The community that this all brought to me was important. I went to an IOPA AGM before I had even planted my first seed, and the people that I met on that first day became my first friends and mentors in the community.”

Heather acknowledges the local organic farming mentors who nurtured her along, including Rebecca Jehn (Rebecca’s Garden), Tina Baynes (Corner Farm), Mary Alice Johnson (ALM Farm), and Dieter Eisenhawer (Eisenhawer Organic Produce). Along with these mentors, Heather acknowledges her business partners Robin and Rachel as major pillars of support.

Family photo. Credit: Northbrook Farm.

Financial Realities

For the first three years at Northbrook Farm, Heather managed the farm on her own, with help from Lamont. After that, they began to invite farm
apprentices in, and this morphed into paid farm hands, managed by Heather.

“In 2021, I decided to hire a field manager, because I didn’t want to feel guilty every moment that I wasn’t on the farm,” says Heather,

She’s been enjoying the challenge of learning how to effectively mentor farm managers. The most difficult part is making sure the managers have all the information they need to be successful, but at the same time, giving them some space to experiment. Heather says she’s trying to strike a balance “where I’m neither micromanaging, nor abandoning the farm manager.”

This is easier said than done due to the incredible financial pressure on the farm, Heather says. “The financial margins on a farm are so non-existent that there really is no room to say, oh, we’ll just let them figure it out and experiment.” With the increasing overhead of wages, supplies, and inputs, Heather walks this tightrope with grace, and respect for her employees.

Due to the rising costs of running a business, Heather says, “the sad reality is that the financial aspect of the farm is no less challenging than it was in year four or five. The farm makes way more money than it did in year five, but I don’t.” In short, the farm has made a huge increase in gross sales, but has not increased in profitability.

She clarifies that it’s her spouse Lamont’s off-farm income that allows the family to have the lifestyle that they enjoy. That being said, she continues, “the farm is my business, my career, and my job. And my career is not as financially lucrative as my spouse’s.”

“I don’t want anyone who comes to this farm to think, ‘Oh my gosh this is so awesome, you can have a farm and raise three kids, one’s away at school, one plays competitive sports, that this is all happening on a farming income.’” Heather quips, “I do not pay to raise my own children.”

Marissa Carlberg harvesting salad greens. Credit: Maylies Lang.

Raising Kids and Vegetables

After her first year of farming, Heather was pregnant, and she received a crash course in farming full-time with a child. Five years later, Heather was farming full-time with three tots in tow.
She remembers one day when the kids were little, and it was a really bad year for mummy berry— Heather has a big blueberry patch. “I was walking by the greenhouse that Saanich Organics employee Mel Sylvestre was handling, and Mel hollered, ‘Hey Heather, the blight has just started in the tomatoes,’” Heather laughs.

“The kid was screaming, and I was exhausted,” she continues, “and I remember being so disheartened, and thinking, what am I doing?”

She thought about it for a moment, and realized, “I couldn’t think of anything else I would do. And that was almost the worst part, feeling like, ‘I’m in this too deep.’ And I didn’t have any reserves left in my body, mind, or spirit to step back and think, maybe I should not be farming right now.”

A few years later, someone Heather knew who was farming and pregnant said she wouldn’t be growing in the coming season, and that she would put everything into cover crops and take a maternity leave. Heather says, “my kids were elementary school age by that time, and my jaw dropped. It never actually occurred to me that I could take a break!” Her first baby was born in early January, and in early February she was starting seedlings. “I was doing crop planning right after I got home from the hospital with my baby,” she remembers.

Heather with cauliflower. Credit: Northbrook Farm.

Memorable Moments and People

Heather says the most joyous memories she has are “visual snippets.” Some of her best memories are “walking down to feed the chickens in the morning and seeing the early sunlight sparkling through the dew on the kale leaves.”

Her biggest treasure is “the composite joy and the sense of richness that I get when I step back and think of all the people who have come through the farm.”
“It’s not just because I got to work with Jay Williamson of Tendergreens Farm, and Josh who now runs Fat Chance Farmstead in Kingston, and Mel Sylvestre who now runs Grounded Acres on the Sunshine Coast,” she says. The network of farmers she has worked with over the years, “like Crystal and Ilya of Square Root Farm, and Rebecca Jehn, and first and foremost Robin and Rachel,” have brought a sense of richness to Heather’s life.

Similarly, Heather has played an important role in mentoring many farmers and apprentices: “Having the brilliance of these young people come through my life every year is a huge gift.” She says, “the apprentices and farm hands who have come through, whom I’ve gotten to spend a season or two with in what is often a very formative period in their lives—that’s where the really deep satisfaction comes in.”

Heather says that when her children were young, the farm hands and apprentices were a positive influence. “They were able to learn from, and respect many different people. That’s one thing I am really proud of at Northbrook Farm, is how many LGBTQ folks have worked here.” Heather continues, “that’s been a huge benefit to me and my family, because my kids have never been without the knowledge that being LGBTQ is a perfectly normal way to be in the world.”

Northbrook Farm and Saanich Organics are known throughout the local 2SLGBTQIA+ community for their support—they even sponsored the Rainbow Chard Queer Farmers Collective in the Victoria Pride Parade. It all started with a few employees early on having a great experience, and sharing that with others in their circles through word of mouth.

Organic Isn’t Just a Word

Besides her passion for environmental sustainability and community, the marketing advantage of certification appealed to Heather. “Even before we had mandatory organic, if you’re going to use a word as important as ‘organic,’ all legal requirements aside, it begs the question, what do you mean by that?”

“The definition of organic cannot be a simple one, and that’s how the standards have evolved, to define this term, organic,” says Heather. “Without that definition, the word is meaningless. Whenever we separate the word ‘organic’ from the [practice of the standards], it harms all of us. Organic is an agreement that we make among ourselves.”

Knowledge and practice of the organic standards requires lifelong study, expertise, and experience that is hard to convey to customers in a short conversation. “I don’t have time to have a conversation with every customer about exactly what all my soil fertility practices are, and what crop rotations look like on my farm,” emphasizes Heather. “More importantly, our customers should not have to be experts in agriculture to feel like they can eat good food, and make healthy and environmentally responsible choices.”

Heather points out the common misconception that “knowing your farmer” can replace the need for organic standards. “To say that a conversation between farmer and consumer replaces the need for organic certification is completely wrong,” she says. “Just because a person knows me, or because I’m nice, doesn’t mean I’m employing best practices. It does not guarantee that I am not using pesticides or chemical fertilizers.” Organic certification takes the guess-work out of relationships between farmers and consumers.

Pillars of Support

Heather Stretch has contributed a lot to the organic community in BC over the years. “I farm because I’m passionate about the food system,” she says. “In the beginning, it just felt like it was incumbent on me and everyone else who cares to step up. The longer you’re involved, the more you realize [the work is] important and interesting. And farmers are fun people to work with. Organic BC has given me the gift of community all around the province.”

“My pillar of support is the organic community in BC,” says Heather, “and the organic community needs the pillar of support that is Eva-Lena Lang. Eva-Lena is the unsung hero of the movement— she keeps this ship afloat through really turbulent waters.”

“There are also the wise, indefatigable women who somehow manage to spread joy at the same time as they spread wisdom,” says Heather, “like
Rebecca Kneen of Crannog Ales, and Anne Macey. They show up decade after decade, doing difficult and often boring work—but they bring joy when they do it.”

“And now the younger men like Jordan Marr and Tristan Banwell,” she continues, “and Tristan’s wife Aubyn needs a shout-out—she’s the reason that Tristan can do this work. All of our pillars of support have support underground that we may or may not see.” This underground support is so important to the success of farmers, whether in the field, or in community work.

The Future of Northbrook Farm

“Over the years, my role is changing,” Heather says, “I don’t do much seeding, weeding, thinning, or harvesting anymore. I do the business planning, the marketing, the bookkeeping, the purchasing, and everything that needs to happen on weekends, like watering.”

When asked what she’s excited about for the future for her farm, Heather talks about her commitment to increasing profitability to achieve her goals of higher wages for employees, and to retain workers for many seasons to come. Heather wants her farm manager role to be an employment opportunity that lasts more than a year or two—she’s hoping to “provide career track employment for farmers, rather than just seasonal work.”

Meanwhile, in the field, Heather is excited about her overwintered cauliflower, “because it’s such a rare and wonderful thing when it actually works!” She gushes, “the way the cauliflower heads just pop out of the leaves—one day there are these plants with no white showing and the next day you go down to look, and there are beautiful cauliflower heads!”

Heather is always up for an experiment, “This year I’m trying a crop of main season cauliflower, which I’ve never succeeded in. Hope springs eternal!”

Hope truly does spring eternal in the fields at Northbrook Farm, where community and collaboration have created a rich tapestry of people and food that will benefit generations to come.

Moss Dance is the layout designer for the BC Organic Grower, a once-and-future vegetable farmer with a big garden, and a newly practicing acupuncturist on the territories of the Hul’qumi’num and SENCOTEN speaking peoples on Salt Spring Island.

Featured image: Salad green harvest at Northbrook Farm. Credit: Maylies Lang.

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Organic Stories: New Siberia Farms, Stó:lo Territory

in 2023/Climate Change/Crop Production/Grow Organic/Land Stewardship/Organic Community/Organic Stories/Water Management/Winter 2023

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 potatoes didn’t quite work out as planned, by the following year the land was home to dairy cows, and later a chicken hatchery. Today, New Siberia Farms covers about 90 acres total, with a handful of leased acres supplementing the home farm, and 55 dairy cows contributing to BC’s organic milk supply.

The founders of New Siberia, Andrew and Mary Balakshin, fled Russia, first landing in China before arriving in Canada in 1925 and getting right to work on the land. By 1926, they were shipping milk, and soon after started the chick hatching business that would be the farm’s bread and butter for the next two decades.

New Siberia weathered the Great Depression, which meant Bill’s father had to find work off the farm. “He sold fish on the side to keep the farm going,” Bill says. Particularly memorable in that decade was the ice storm of 1935—”the power was out for three months, making it difficult to do just about everything.”

During the war years, “there was bigger demand for food. The Depression was over, and there was more need for chickens, eggs, milk.” Then came the flood of 1948: “there was water all around and in the farm in the low areas.” They were told to evacuate, but didn’t know where to go with the chickens. Gambling on the dyke holding despite all signs pointing to disaster, they stayed put, and in the end, so did the dyke.

That same year, Bill’s parents took over the farm and started to increase cow production—luckily, because when the hatching market fell apart in 1962, they closed the hatchery and were set to focus on dairy. The farm has always dug into a sense of community, whether that was hosting workers in Bill’s parents’ house or, as they’ve continued to do, having a big party after field work, with food and beer, of course.

One of the young Balakshins feeding chickens. Credit: New Siberia Farms.

Bill started working full-time for the farm in 1971, and married Janice in 1981. They’ve been operating the dairy ever since. Dairy feels like second nature to Bill and Janice now. “It’s 365 days a year! If you’re not milking, you’ve got to get someone else to do it,” Janice says. “It keeps a regularity to life. Like any type of farming, it’s very time consuming, but rewarding being outside most of time.” Their son Tom, one of three, joined the farm in 2018. He describes his parents as “semi-retired, but of course they work much harder than that. Both of them actively take care of the farm like it is their fourth child and the milk ladies are their kin.”

Despite all the decades that have passed, “the farm is much the same today,” Janice says. They’ve been certified organic for five years, but “we were always interested in the organic approach. We followed all those same guidelines, but 20 years we ago didn’t feel there was access to organic feed.” Now, feed is much less of a “stumbling block,” as Janice describes it. “There is so much support around us. Organic is a much easier prospect than it was twenty years ago for a dairy farm.”

It was a “slow process” to get certified, Bill says. “We couldn’t get into the organic dairy program at first.” Dairy is supply-managed in BC, and “they’ll let in new producers when they can sell more organic milk—when we first applied, they had enough organic supply, but demand kept increasing.” Eventually, New Siberia was given quota.
The farm’s goals “have always been about animal welfare, whether organic or not,” Janice says. Being certified solidified that for them: “there was very little we had to change in our operation. That does give me validation we were doing things correct all the way along.” They use very few inputs, and their cows spend most of their lives outside. “We feel that their overall health is very good, and that goes back to a lot of the organic practices,” Janice says.

Bill is pleased to see that, “as more farmers get into dairy-ing, particularly growing alfalfa and having corn silage,” the overall quality of organic feed is improving. While they don’t feed much alfalfa, they’re always looking for something with just a bit more protein for the wet west coast climate. “Our cows aren’t worked too hard,” Bill says. “That’s the whole idea, they’re not stressed, they get lots of exercise.”

Farm dog out at work in the pasture. Credit: New Siberia Farms.

There are many perks to being a part of BC’s organic community. Apart from how nice it is to have a growing organic community in Chilliwack to lean on, Janice has been on the planning committee for the much-loved annual BC Organic Conference. “We have enjoyed meeting other people who are like-minded. It’s great to see perspectives also from other regions of BC,” she says. “Any opportunity to meet other farmers is good.” Janice appreciates that “under the umbrella of Organic BC, any farmer who is organic is pursuing the same goals as we are.”

As Bill and Janice step away from farm management, they’re able to focus more on stewardship practices. Always an integral part of the farm, riparian zones and wildlife are now taking central stage in daily life. “We live along a slough,” Janice says. “There were a lot of non-natives—blackberries, knotweed, all the nasty things that have been growing in this valley.”

Working with the Fraser Valley Conservancy, they have gradually planted two-thirds of their sloughs in native trees and shrubs. Janice notes that while it can be tempting to rush to convert to native plants, “the conservancies stress that even blackberry can provide a lot of cover for birds. You don’t want to just rip out everything, you want to do it in a structured way.”

Organizations such as the Fraser Valley Conservancy assist landholders with riparian zones and native plantings. When you sign-up to be a steward, you’re committing to look after plants, “but for the first few years, they will provide plants and come out and help. They’re always looking for more people to sign up,” she hints.
Janice is part of a campaign to preserve the sloughs. “Even if they’re running through farms, sloughs are a community source for enjoyment.” In collaboration with the Conservancy and other like-minded groups such as Friends of Hope, Camp River, and Bell Slough, she has assisted with riparian area planting days, bike rides, and more. “A slough is an important resource, and should be valued. Once people value it, they don’t abuse it.”

Improving riparian zones benefits everybody. New Siberia Farm has many plantings of trees and shrubs on the property, and are a frequent eagle landing site. “We’re creating a more varied environment, so it’s not just a monoculture,” Janice says. “You can see a difference already, just with the sloughs.”

The floods last November were “a wake-up call,” according to Janice. “Along the slough just west of our property, where people had planted grass instead of native shrubs, it was devastating how much land was lost from their backyards. People are now talking about the importance of making sure you have a ground cover of something, especially native plants. If this rain happens again, it is a protective boundary.”

The view from the tractor. Credit: New Siberia Farms

Bill appreciates the carbon sink generated by having his fields in grass for so many years. The last few years, they haven’t plowed any fields, choosing instead to overseed. That way “we don’t disturb the ground,” he says. “The microbes in the ground are supposed to be quite beneficial. We don’t want to kill anything in the ground.”

From carbon sinks to riparian zones to happy cows, Bill and Janice are always looking for ways to do good for the ecosystem, right down to recycling the plastic from their round bales. For the past 15 years, they’ve been taking “the equivalent of five pickup loads” of plastic that’s been cleaned, dried, and compacted to Richmond, but more recently, they’ve been able to get the plastic picked up instead. “We feel it’s a farmer’s responsibility to pay the cost of this.” At only $15 per big tote, Janice says “it’s worth it, in that it’s not going to the dump. It would probably cost more to take it to the dump!”

What’s next for New Siberia Farms? Janice is keen to see what the next generation does with the farm. “I can see a future in small processors on farms, maybe specialty products. I think the consumer is looking for things like that. There’s always a possibility where you can branch out in the future, still with dairy and a small farm.”

Most importantly, the future comes back to the history of the land: “All through the generations,” says Janice, “the idea was that the farm exists for whoever is on the farm, to make profit but not to be sold. We’ve passed that on to our kids, ingrained in them that this is on the back of a lot of ancestors.”

It feels like Bill and Janice have been practicing being good ancestors for their whole careers. After all, as Bill puts it, “we’re looking after the land for the next generation.”

New Siberia Farms has moved from chickens to dairy cows as their main focus. Credit: New Siberia Farms.
Historical photos from New Siberia Farms. Clockwise from top left: Determining the sex of chicks; Early infrastructure on the farm; The younger generation curious about chicks; Haying in the summer, with a young Bill Balakshin on top of the pile of hay on the right; Chickens on the range. Hutches are moveable to prevent disease. Credit: New Siberia Farms.

 

More information on riparian zones and sloughs:
fraservalleyconservancy.ca
watershedwatch.ca

Darcy Smith is the editor of the BC Organic Grower, and a huge fan of organic farmers. She also manages the BC Land Matching Program delivered by Young Agrarians.

Featured image: Cows grazing at New Siberia Farms. Credit: New Siberia Farms.

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Op-ed: Towards a National Agricultural Labour Strategy That Works for Farmers and Farm Workers

in 2023/Organic Community/Organic Standards/Winter 2023

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 inadequate returns to the work of farming, whether done by the farm operators or farm workers. Paying high prices for inputs and receiving low prices for commodities results in farmers subsidizing their farms with off-farm jobs, pressure to keep wages to farm workers low, the exit of skilled people from the sector to pursue more remunerative and less precarious sources of income, and a lack of new entrants to replace retiring farmers.
Yet, there are many young people who would like to make farming their life’s work. They are interested in having good jobs on farms and/or operating their own farms. Canada is a wealthy country and has the ability to ensure they have rewarding careers—if we have an Agricultural Labour Strategy that is designed to ensure farm labour is properly compensated, safe, and dignified.

We reject a view that seeks to reduce labour costs by maximizing the use of technology (robots, automation, self-driving tractors, etc.) and adopting a “just-in-time” approach to the employment of Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs). Canada’s National Agricultural Labour Strategy must recognize the full humanity of farmers and farm workers, the role and meaning of work in their lives, and the multiple contributions to a healthy society that result from the dignity of work. In other words, the people who work on their own farms or as employees on farms are not merely “productive units” that enable input companies, commodity traders, and food processors to maximize their profits.

The crisis in farm labour goes beyond a labour shortage that threatens Canada’s food production capacity. It is also an alarm bell for Canada to heed before we lose the essential skills and knowledge carried by the people who do the work of agriculture.

We in the NFU believe we need an Agriculture Labour Strategy that respects and values the work of farming—whether it is done by farmers or farm workers.

Are labour shortages having a negative impact?

The failure of the agri-food sector to provide returns to labour has resulted in a loss of farms, and an inability of the agriculture and agri-food sector to reliably attract and retain needed workers. This worsens the farm income crisis, accelerates rural depopulation, and contributes to a decline in the quality of life for rural residents. These factors drive a vicious circle of decline. When farmers on small and mid-sized sustainable farms are unable to secure a liveable income, they are unable to hire farm workers at competitive wages. The long-term loss of farmers depletes the pool of local people with the required skills. Retired farmers have become an important but time-limited source of labour on the prairies where farm size has increased dramatically. If and when there is nobody available to hire, work goes undone, resulting in higher risks, more farm stress, lower production, higher costs, and lower incomes. A lack of labour also inhibits farms from adopting or continuing practices that are better for the land but take more time.

Labour shortages also mean existing workers (including farm owners) work for longer hours and must cover a wider range of tasks. The strain that results often induces undercompensated, skilled farm workers to leave the sector, further worsening the loss of farm productivity.

Carrying flats of strawberries. Credit: Tim Mossholder.

Has the supply and demand related to agricultural workers changed in recent years?

With the exception of the supply managed sectors, Canada’s agriculture markets are structured to keep prices paid to farmers as low as possible. This is due primarily to the monopoly power of the main agri-business corporations purchasing commodities, and is reinforced by trade agreements and export policies that require Canadian products to compete at home and abroad with those produced in countries with much lower wage rates and weaker labour standards. The “demand” for labour is tightly linked to the ability to pay, thus the leakage of Canada’s food dollars to multinational corporations elsewhere reduces the amount of revenue available in our own food system that could support a larger number of farmers and farm workers.

The supply of agricultural labour in Canada is constrained by low wages and working conditions, discouraging young people from pursuing agricultural careers. While trade agreements allow Canada to easily import low-priced agricultural products, workers’ mobility to come here, and to move within Canada, is tightly controlled at the border and by the rules governing TFWs. In addition, the restrictions on TFW mobility and their lack of rights contribute to the undervaluing of farm labour across the board.

How can we help keep workers in the agriculture and agri-food sector, and better support the recruitment and retention of under-represented groups?

Many farm workers are racialized and/or are from disadvantaged communities that are under-represented in better-paying sectors of the economy. The Farm Labour Strategy needs to increase equity within the sector, and between agriculture and other sectors of the economy, with policies that ensure both farmers and farm workers are able to earn livable incomes.
All farm workers in Canada should have the coverage they need under provincial and territorial labour laws, including the right to associate and form a union.

All TFWs in agriculture should be entitled to permanent residency status. Many TFWs have been coming to Canada seasonally for over 30 years. If we want to keep these workers in the agriculture and agri-food sector and attract even more high-calibre, skilled foreign workers, we need to ensure they have access to and can benefit from all the rights and protections afforded to Canadian workers.

Globalization has entrenched an imbalance between farm product prices and the living wage level required for farm workers in Canada. A Basic Income Guarantee and/or changes to the Employment Insurance (EI) system are needed to address this problem. The EI system should recognize the seasonality of agriculture work and the need for a year-round livable income for farm workers. With a liveable year-round income, people employed as farm workers could continue the essential task of growing food for Canadians without worry of seasonal income loss, climate change disruptions (drought, fires, etc.) and without increasing food costs for consumers.

Improving Business Risk Program design to ensure labour intensive operations have adequate support and a Guaranteed Basic Income program that takes into account the specifics of agricultural work should be explored so that all agricultural producers can continue the essential task of growing food for Canadians.

In addition to low wages, our farm worker members consistently voice how a lack of quality, affordable, and conveniently-located housing is a major deterrent for remaining in the sector. Canada must invest in rural public housing; rural schools; rural public transit; and child-care facilities. More investment in rural health care and more affordable access for both farm operators and farm workers to supplementary health and dental benefits and workers’ compensation insurance is also needed.

Small and medium enterprises in local food processing should have priority for grants to allow them to upgrade their facilities to improve working conditions in order to attract and retain skilled workers. The benefits of such support go beyond the success of the enterprises themselves, as smaller operations which are distributed across Canada generally have a greater net impact on their local economies and regional food security by providing both jobs in the community and value-added revenue for local producers.

Do most workers have the skills they need to be successful?

Some agricultural production and processing jobs go unfilled because there are not enough people with the necessary training. Improved training programs, funding to support on-farm training, and recognition of skills acquired in previous work situations would help close this gap. This is particularly true for small and medium enterprises in the food processing sector, such as provincially licensed abattoirs. For example, in BC, the only training program for meat cutters graduates 12-14 new butchers a year. This post-secondary institution (Thompson Rivers University) reports that after five years, only two of those graduates will still be working in the industry. A recent study by the BC Abattoirs Association estimates that the need for trained meat cutters is 200 immediately; and another 400 will be needed within two years.

The NFU Ontario report, Reframing the Farm Labour Crisis in Ontario, notes that farmers identified the need for Human Resource management training, with upwards to 60% saying that they didn’t have the time or knowledge to provide a variety of HR policies to their staff. In the same report, farm workers identified a number of top agricultural skills they wished to acquire, including training on soil health and amendments, weed and disease identification, horticultural and crop care, irrigation, livestock care, training for construction and infrastructure, tractor & heavy equipment use, and marketing and customer service.

How can agriculture help ensure workers have the skills needed for transition to a more resilient and adaptable economy?

Canada needs publicly-funded financial support for transitioning to more climate-friendly agricultural methods, including research into agronomic methods that are not input-dependent and hiring agronomists to provide free and reliable extension services to promote best management practices. The NFU recommends establishing a new Canadian Agriculture Resilience Agency to deliver coordinated research and extension to support a just transition to profitable, low-emission, climate adaptation.

The Agricultural Labour Strategy also should provide financial support for on-farm training. Most farmers learn how to grow food while on the farm. Government financial support for both farm employers as “trainers” and for farm workers as “trainees” for on-farm training/education will enable farmers to share best environmental farming practices.

With increasing automation and use of digital technology in farm machinery, the government needs to promote on-farm innovation by assisting farmers and farm workers to access open source information, share their own knowledge, skills, and creativity to create and use appropriate technologies while strengthening social relationships within their enterprises and communities.

Are automation and labour-saving technologies being adequately utilized?

Farmers take many factors into consideration when deciding whether to adopt new technologies. A better question might be ‘do automation options fulfill the expressed needs of farmers?’ More automation with bigger machinery risks increased soil compaction, reducing water infiltration and holding capacity in soil, and making farms less resilient to weather extremes we’re now experiencing on a regular basis due to the climate crisis. Farmers highly value their autonomy as decision-makers, which automated technologies can impinge upon. For example, proprietary computer systems mean the farmer is dependent on dealers’ technicians to make repairs, adding costs and delays that can have major consequences.

Are there barriers to the development and adoption of automation and labour-saving technologies?

High capital costs of automation may exceed potential savings for small and medium sized producers and processors. Automation may reduce farmers’ ability to adjust operations in response to unexpected situations or conditions. Reliance on Artificial Intelligence and algorithms programmed into machinery has the potential to generate landscape level errors, hazards, damage and losses when the automated system fails to comprehend the complexity of the situation and applies the wrong solutions.

Energy costs and emissions from automation can increase GHG emissions when it involves replacing human energy with fossil fuel energy; sustainable farming methods often require more, not less, labour inputs.

Automation can be used for worker and farmer surveillance with unacceptable implications for privacy, fairness, and autonomy. For example, the world’s largest farm machinery company, John Deere, is also investing heavily in big data applications and has entered into partnerships with seed and commodity trading corporations that exacerbate the power imbalance between farmers and the companies they deal with.

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) reported in 2020 on the technological tools greenhouse employers use to monitor migrant farm workers on the assembly line. UFCW observed that the assembly-line workers who do not achieve quota are docked pay or have their shifts reduced. The use of surveillance to increase productivity of farm workers is an unacceptable level of control. It is not only incompatible with worker dignity, but can create occupational health and safety problems from repetitive strain and overwork, as documented in Amazon warehouses.

Are there barriers to expansion of automation and labour-saving technologies in the processing sector?

Solving the abattoir labour shortage is extremely important for livestock farmers, but increased automation cannot replace skilled, trained workers. Rather than investments in automation technologies we need the government to invest in the expansion of butchery training programs and support for small-scale, local, and regional abattoirs.

We need an employment and immigration program that allows livestock producers, butchers, and meat-cutters access to temporary foreign workers who are given pathways to permanent residency so abattoirs and livestock producers can benefit from their skills year-round.

The severe shortage of trained butchers threatens the viability of small and medium sized cut-and-wrap facilities, and a special immigration program to fast-track skilled butchers to be employed in provincially inspected abattoirs and community butcher shops is urgently needed.

Increased capacity in these enterprises is needed to address unacceptable delays and bottlenecks that are constraining the ability of farmers to serve growing demand from customers who wish to buy locally raised livestock.

What gaps in labour market information need to be filled?

We need to know more about the differences in income, profits, wages, etc. between large corporate operations and smaller, family-run farms. We need to know whether—and by how much—larger operations are actually able to increase what they pay their workers.

We need data on wage averages or range of wages paid across the agri-food sector, especially in provinces like Ontario, where primary agricultural workers are not regulated by minimum wage laws.

What priority solutions should federal and provincial/territorial governments pursue to address labour shortages?

Canada needs to provide Permanent Residency for All Temporary Foreign Agricultural Workers.

All farm workers need to be guaranteed labour rights, including the right to unionize.

A Basic Income Guarantee, along with Employment Insurance reform (increasing rates and eligibility for all those who labour in the agricultural sector), wage subsidies, and/or increases to minimum wage rates are urgently required to ensure farmers and farm workers can have economically and socially sustainable careers producing food for Canadians.
Rural, agricultural work will be more attractive if the government invests in rural services and amenities, including affordable and conveniently-located public housing; affordable childcare; schools; health care services and access to affordable supplementary health and dental benefits; inter-community public transit; and other cultural and recreational amenities.

What government service, programming and/or engagement related to labour, needs to be immediately changed?

Open work permits for all Temporary Foreign Workers: until the government creates a dedicated immigration stream for agricultural workers, all TFWs should be issued open work permits which will allow them to change employers if necessary. They should also be granted all the rights and privileges of Canadian workers under provincial and territorial labour laws. Farm workers frequently experience low wages, poor working conditions, precarious employment, lack of needed services for quality of life, discrimination, and at times mistreatment and threats of violence. Enduring such conditions should not be the price of working in Canada for anyone, including TFWs.

Canada needs an agricultural labour strategy that puts the people who labour – farmers and farm workers – at the centre. It must start with policies that ensure the price farmers receive for the product will return to the producer the cost of production, including a reasonable return on investment, management and labour. This principle holds whether the buyer is a commodity trader operating internationally, a food processor serving the Canadian market or supermarket owners buying local produce: all need to pay prices that allow their suppliers to maintain safe and equitable working conditions for all farmers and workers.

nfu.ca

The National Farmers Union is a voluntary direct-membership, non-partisan, national farm organization made up of thousands of farm families from across Canada. Founded in 1969, the NFU advocates for policies that promote the dignity, prosperity and sustainable future of farmers, farm workers, their families and their communities.

Featured image: Workers in the field on a rainy day harvesting strawberries. Credit: Tim Mossholder.

Further reading:

Reframing the Farm Labour Crisis: nfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Reframing-the-Farm-Labour-Crisis-NFU-O-Farm-Labour-Study_compressed.pdf

Canadian Farm Resiliency Administration: nfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/CFRA.25.02.pdf

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Organic Stories: Grounded Acres, Skwxwú7mesh territory

in 2022/Climate Change/Crop Production/Fall 2022/Grow Organic/Marketing/Organic Community/Organic Stories

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 farms with Hannah Lewis, her “partner in life, partner in business,” at Grounded Acres Organic Farm on what is today known as the Sunshine Coast. Of their five-acre property, “about two acres, give or take, is farmed in some way.”

Mel and Hannah grow mixed vegetables and have about 100 laying hens, and they get their food to their community through the Sechelt Farmers’ Market, their farm stand, local restaurants, and a collaborative community box program put together by a local organization.

The vision for Grounded Acres was to open up an acre of land and grow from there. They knew they could make enough revenue out of an acre to keep them going, and build from there wisely. They were also keen to learn what people wanted in their new community. “We did a lot of market research,” Mel says, “Our first year we did a blind shot in the dark—we grew as much and little as we could of everything and let things fly, so we could see what the enthusiasm was for. In one region everyone wants green curly kale, in another people want Lacinato kale, and you don’t know why.”

Grounded Acres apprentice crew working in the fields. Credit: Grounded Acres Organic Farm.

As they get to know their community, Mel and Hannah are also learning the land, which was first opened up over a century ago. First a strawberry farm, then planted in potatoes, it had been 30 to 50 years without having tillage of any sort when they arrived. The land isn’t classified as agricultural soil: it’s class four, or with improvement class 3, loamy sand. Mel says “it’s extremely sandy, and in some parts extremely rocky. In other parts, folks a century ago did the work of removing rocks.”

The good news is Mel is familiar with improving soil. Before moving to the coast, both Mel and Hannah spent almost a decade working at UBC Farm, which has the same soil class. “We came with a shovel when we visited the property. I dug a hole and said, ‘Ah, same soil’.”

Mel originally trained as a musician and sound tech, but when the industry began turning to technology and opportunities dwindled for sound techs, she landed on an organic farm in the outskirts of Montreal teaching children. Despite being raised in the middle of cornfields and dairy cows, she hadn’t been interested in farming until, she says, “I was watching people in the field and thought, ‘Hey, that looks fun’.” One day, they needed help, so Mel “picked up a hoe, went out and helped, and fell in love.” From there, she got another farm job.

Sometimes, Mel says “I wish I had started with an apprenticeship, or working more intentionally on the farm. Things just kept happening, and life brought me from one farm to another.” She ended up in BC in 2005, and farmed with Saanich Organics on the island for six seasons.

Curious hens provide eggs to the Gibson’s community. Credit: Grounded Acres Organic Farm.

Eight years into her farming journey, she had a window where she could return to university, and studied plant and soil science at UBC. That led her to UBC Farm, where she “discovered a new love, teaching and helping other folks getting into farming.” UBC farm is also where Mel had the opportunity to get into seed production.

UBC Farm is where she found a different kind of love. Hannah was already working in the Indigenous garden at UBC Farm when Mel arrived, but it took them a year—and realizing they were neighbours—before they started connecting. “We didn’t overlap much at the farm, our rhythms in the day were quite different, but we discovered we lived a block from each other, and every time I was taking the 99 bus from East Van she was on the bus. We call it a 99 romance—the 99 brought us together.”

Mel knew she didn’t want to stay in the city long-term, but Hannah was an educator by training. While she really liked gardening, Hannah wasn’t sure how she felt about farming—until she took UBC’s farm practicum and discovered she also loved working the land.

But, Mel says, “what Hannah loved even more was the Sunshine Coast. In my head I thought I was going to go back to the island where my community was, but she convinced me.” They started looking for property, and, Mel says, “I started developing my relationship with the land here.”

It took them three years to find the right piece of land, and by then Mel and Hannah had new twins along for the ride. “We have the lucky situation, the privilege, of having family that invested in our land,” which, Mel says, “was a life saver in the start-up of this business.” Hannah’s mother sold her condo in Vancouver and moved with the young family in order to help them buy the property. “Having the grandchildren in the picture helped.”

Mel is “thankful for the years I spent working on other farms. It’s a blessing and curse. I knew what I needed to be successful, but the curse was I knew how much money it would cost.” They started with zero savings, and Mel knew they would need $100 thousand in financing for the first year to even be able to make their loan payments. “That was the barebone minimum. It seems like a lot of money but it was just barely what I knew we needed to be resilient and get through those first few years, as well as be healthy for our family. We’re not 20 anymore,” Mel says. “We have twins and they’re two years old, and we had a lot of infrastructure to put in place: irrigation, greenhouses, washing station, cooler, workshop. There was a lot that needed to come together to make the farm possible.”

With a solid business plan, clear vision, and the confidence that comes from experience, they went in search of funding—and an angel investor from the community “came out of the woodwork, believed in us, and lent us the money that we needed,” Mel says.

Hannah and Chef Johnny Bridge satisfied with cauliflower. Credit: @joshneufeldphoto.

Mid-way through their second season on this piece of land, Mel reflects on how lucky they’ve been, despite a tough year. Crops are three weeks behind, and some have been lost due to weather and pests. “All the things from a cold wet spring,” Mel says. “That’s the name of the game. Every farm has pluses and minuses, and depending on the season, you’ll lose some and gain some.” They have sandy soil, so the heat dome—and accompanying water restrictions—was harder. The sandy soil helped them out this spring, while nearby farms are on clay soil, which never drains. “I feel for the beginners right now. The last two to three seasons were uniquely hard. It’s next-level hardship for farming.”

Mel has the “old equation” in her head, from when she was brought up to be a new farmer. Once upon a time, the first three years were supposed to be tough, and starting in years four to five, “it should be even keel, you should have your system down and understand the land enough to play around.” That magic three-to-five-year number is because “even if you know what you’re doing, there are still things to learn, on the land, in the area, what’s the pattern here, why aren’t the cover crops growing. There’s lots to troubleshoot.” But, Mel says, “that’s not the way it is any more. It could be year 10 before you start to feel like you’re coasting…”

At Grounded Acres, they’re “still really in the deep of it,” learning what their customers want, what ingredients chefs are looking for—there’s lots to figure out. But there’s good news: “one thing people have said even before we moved here, if you grow it, it will fly.” Even before the pandemic, young families were leaving the city and moving to the Sunshine Coast. Between the young families and established residents, there’s high demand for fresh produce. Marketing their product on the coast “has been a fairly easy ride compared to other regions I’ve worked in where there are a lot of other market gardeners per capita,” Mel says.

Mel out on the tractor on a long summer evening.
Credit: Grounded Acres Organic Farm.

As it turns out, on the Sunshine Coast everyone wants curly kale, but that hasn’t stopped Mel and Hannah from planting a variety. “We love the diversity. One will sell more, but there’s going to be a reason why we’re glad we planted the other,” says Mel. “Siberian kale is not my favourite in the summer—pests love it. But I always plant a bit because over the winter it’s going to rock it. We had the worst winter last year, it was so cold for so long, but we were still harvesting Siberian kale.” Mel remembers that the other varieties were skeletons, but the Siberian came roaring back and they were able to sell bags of braising greens. “Fresh kale on the stand in March—people will elbow each other out of the way to get it.”

Mel says they will always keep the diversity in their crop planning. “I think climate change is reinforcing what we’ve known as biodiverse small-scale farmers,” she says, and recommends that even within one crop, don’t plant just one variety, go for a few. “It surprises me every year, that one variety rocked it for four years but this year not so much. I’m always so glad I planted that other one. Climate change is running that message back home heavily about not putting all your eggs in one basket.”

Over the last hard winter five or six years back, Mel remembers people planting more and more overwintering brassicas like purple sprouting broccoli, or planting lots of greens in the spring. The risk there is picking up on that trend and over-committing. One person, at least, planted triple the amount and lost everything. “Mother nature is always like, ‘Oh you’re feeling confident, I’ll take your confidence away’.” Moments like that are there to “remind you not to bank too hard on that income, to have other avenues to make it through the season.”

“We live in a culture where we’re looking for that one book, that one person who’s going to teach us everything,” Mel says. “Farming is not that. I know folks that went to five, six, seven different farms to learn as much as they can. You will still learn until you die. There is no recipe in farming, there’s just a set of skills and knowledge you can keep accumulating.”

Mel highlights the importance of having a “troubleshooting mind” in the absence of a formula: someone can say, do it this way and this will be your result. “Maybe one year out of three that will be true. Other years, you get a cold spring and you have white fly now.” She is adamant that no one person on this planet can teach you—rather, it’s important to have diverse teachers. While there’s lots to be learned from books or online resources, that can be “a dangerous road. It doesn’t give you as much resilience in your toolbelt as just going through a season with one farmer locally in the region you want to farm.”

Grounded Acres Organic Farm Family: Hannah, Mel, Juniper, and River. Credit: Grounded Acres Organic Farm.

Community has been more important to their early success than Mel would ever have dreamed. Between Hannah and Mel, they have an incredible—and complementary—set of skills that are different and complete each other. Mel loves people but describes herself as “a blunt Quebecer who tells it like it is, which doesn’t always fly on the coast,” while she says “Hannah has this incredible way to put things in words. She’s spent a lot of time building who we are for the community.”

They landed in a new place mid-winter with small children. “We only had so much time to go around mingling and meeting people,” Mel says. Hannah spent the winter building the farm’s website and social media, telling their story. Coming from a teaching farm where Hannah was running a volunteer program, they wanted to open up their new farm to folks wanting to connect with the land. Between the pandemic and working from home, people were “aching to get out into nature. Our story spread like wildfire and we got so many volunteers. Our investor came out of that, too.”

A handful of the folks who started coming in that first year are still coming—“they are really committed and became our community,” Mel says. “We call them friends, we know everything about each other from weeding.” Mel has lived in small communities before, and knows that when you’re new somewhere you have to prove yourself. “People have to ask themselves, ‘Am I going to invest energy in building a relationship with this person?’ I think we’re in the book now!”

Overall, they have found that the community has been very welcoming. “Despite the fact that it’s small here, it’s mighty,” Mel says. “The farmers we’ve met have been very supportive. We can borrow from each other when we run out of pint containers, for example.” This kind of collaboration is especially essential because the Sunshine Coast is not in an agricultural area, and there’s a ferry between them and any supplies.

Community extends beyond their neighbours on the Sunshine Coast. Grounded Acres is certified organic. “The community that raised me as a farmer in BC was the certified organic community,” Mel says. “At a really young farmer age, I got into the importance of organic, and the importance of that community in itself.” Mel went to her first BC Organic conference her first year farming in BC. “It’s always a highlight of my year, not necessarily what I’m learning but who I’m connecting with, who I’m getting to rant with, have a beer with. That precious moment that every farmer needs, to feel that you’re not alone.”

Mel and Hannah started out with laying hens right away to respond to the community’s needs. Credit: Grounded Acres Organic Farm.

For Mel, being certified organic is about more than just what organic means. “At the end of the day we can make those practices happen without having certification, but certification is investing in keeping that community alive, that one thing that gives us a voice, makes us visible, makes us not just a trend.” The organic community in BC specifically has been together for many years, and Mel has “so much respect for the folks that put that system together, and the folks keeping it together.”

While there’s no one recipe to farming, Mel and Hannah have certainly pulled together many key ingredients, from their diverse skills to the people who support their farm in many different ways. “Diversity in the field, diversity in skills” is important, Mel says. “The jack-of-all-trades farmer thing is romanticized a lot, but it’s a harsh reality.” Bringing multiple skill sets and interests to the field is so important—even if someone is just looking for a business partner, don’t look for people who like doing the same things you do, Mel recommends.

“That’s one thing I appreciate about our farm every day. Hannah will put time into doing wholesale with chefs and going to market on the weekend. My favourite thing is to be alone on the farm, and she comes back so excited, it feeds her—and that in turn feeds me.” The foundation of Grounded Acres is the relationship between Mel and Hannah, “romantic partners who are good business partner matches as well, how lucky we are!”

groundedacresfarm.ca

Darcy Smith is the editor of the BC Organic Grower, and a huge fan of organic farmers. She also manages the BC Land Matching Program delivered by Young Agrarians.

Feature image: Queer community setting up tomato tunnels. Credit: Grounded Acres Organic Farm.

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Agriculture Policy: What is All the Hoopla About?

in 2022/Climate Change/Fall 2022/Grow Organic/Organic Standards/Standards Updates

Mary Paradis

Most of Canada’s agricultural policy is delivered through five-year policy frameworks, co-developed and co-negotiated by the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. Meant to strengthen and grow Canada’s agriculture sector, the framework is agriculture’s primary policy document that guides how government supports farmers and has historically encompassed approximately $3 billion in public spending.

Farmers for Climate Solutions (FCS) is a national farmer-led coalition advocating to make agriculture part of the solution to climate change. In February, they submitted evidence-based recommendations for the next APF to scale-up the adoption of climate-friendly practices that reduce GHG emissions, increase carbon sequestration, and strengthen resilience on farms across Canada. As a member of Farmers for Climate Solutions, Organic BC has been supporting their efforts to make action on climate change central to the new APF.

The new agreement, called the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (SCAP), was announced in July. Some of the positive outcomes of SCAP include:

  • $500 million in new funds for cost-share programs, a 25 percent increase from the current framework.
  • A commitment to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by three to five megatonnes over the lifespan of the framework.
  • A commitment to increase funding for Indigenous farmers and food providers, women farmers, and youth farmers.
  • $250 million for the Resilient Agricultural Landscape Program to fund farming practices that support carbon sequestration, adaptation, and other environmental co-benefits.
  • A one-year review period of current Business Risk Management (BRM) Programs to better integrate climate risk.
  • The requirement for large farms to perform an agri-environmental risk assessment or Environmental Farm Plan by 2025 to participate in AgriInvest.
  • A reiteration of the commitment to reduce emissions from nitrogen fertilizer by 30 percent.

Each province and territory will now negotiate specific agreements with the federal government on how the policies and funding will be implemented in their respective regions. Programs and services that are tailored to meet regional needs are cost shared, with the federal government contributing 60 percent and the provincial or territorial government contributing 40 percent.

As the bi-lateral negotiations take place over the coming months, Organic BC will continue to advocate for strong and responsive supports for all scales of farm operations in our province, to help both mitigate and adapt to climate change.

bit.ly/3woAIBx

farmersforclimatesolutions.ca

Feature image: Brassicas bursting with life. Credit: Thomas Buchan.

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Footnotes from the Field: Cause and Effect

in 2022/Climate Change/Footnotes from the Field/Summer 2022

The Relationship Between Religions, Agriculture, and Civilizations

Marjorie Harris

“The way we see the world shapes the way we treat it. If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore…if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity… then we will treat each other with greater respect. Thus is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective.” – David Suzuki

David Suzuki has provided a provocative consideration about how we perceive the world and how that impacts our treatment of the world and each other. Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Brian Snyder, a recently retired executive director of Ohio State University’s Initiative for Food and AgriCultural Transformation (InFACT) program, to discuss similar ideas about how agriculture impacts the world and ourselves.

Brian has 40 years of experience managing programs having to do with agriculture and food systems, with a business degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a theological degree from Harvard. He is just the expert to expand an understanding on the cause and effect of our world perceptions and the results we are harvesting.

Brian has been observing agricultural systems and their underlying religious philosophies, and he has come to the startling conclusion that all religions emerged to explain and justify cultural systems that run contrary to natural systems, and seek to overcome natural systems. Religion is often a justification for things that are contrary to nature, rather than a set of principles to build one’s life upon—as we have been led to believe by consumerist belief systems embedded into the foundations of the world’s religious systems.

Reframing History

For the bulk of human history people have been hunter-gatherers subject to the cycles of nature, whether they be feast or famine. With the archeological discovery of the Gobekli Tepe, the entire understanding modern scholars had about the origin of agriculture in relationship to religion was flipped upside down. The Gobekli Tepe temple structures are located in the Cappadocia region of northern Turkey and have been dated to 15,000 years old. They are now identified as the world’s oldest and first temples. The Gobekli Tepe temple complex was built before the beginning of agriculture, as agriculture is thought to have been established about 10,000 years ago. No evidence of domestic grains or livestock are present at the Gobekli Tepe site, only wild animal bones.

Until Gobekli Tepe’s discovery, it was thought that religion had been developed in response to the rise of agriculture. That theory has now been challenged, with an alternative interpretation being that agriculture developed in response to a religious presence—the rise of agriculture is coincident with the rise of religion. As Brian explains, religions can function to justify the use of agriculture to grow human populations beyond the natural carrying capacity of the land. The intentional raising of crops through tillage in an organized way created an abundance of food, providing more than was needed for the population.

From a cultural standpoint, this was an inflection point: the abundance of food led people to take the false belief that they were in control; yet nature is still, and always will be, beyond human control with regard to climate and the geological and celestial movements that control the growing seasons.

Brian observes that there is some sort of inherent divine presence that looks after all these things in the world. As depicted in the Christian Garden of Eden creation story, humanity started in the garden where nature took care of itself and provided for the people. At the point where people started to grow gardens and livestock for themselves, they seized governance for themselves, from nature. This is recorded in Genesis as the Fall of Man—human beings taking control of this natural process, with the idea of growing the population beyond what the land could naturally support.

The Cain and Abel story is an explicit struggle between livestock and crops over famine, water quality, and food security. Humanity hasn’t moved beyond these basic struggles, which have existed since the beginning of agriculture. In other religions, reincarnation offers a way to survive current problems and come back, without ever questioning what there will be to come back to if there is extinction?

Losing Ourselves to “Feed the World”

Today’s agricultural rhetoric is that we have to feed the world. We must be ready to feed people who are not here yet, have not been born yet—under the industrial corporate agriculture system the population will continue to grow unabated. The result of this rhetoric will be a further reduction in ecosystem biodiversity and biodiversity of crop-types, through the direct corporate control and ownership over the genetic materials for seeds and livestock.

Here is the challenge for humanity. It is both spiritual and scientific. What was divine was biodiversity propagating itself and creating ecosystem abundance in response to the natural environments. The population has grown beyond the carrying capacity of the earth already and reduction of species has been dramatic in recent decades. These events are playing out in the final Fall of Man—in the Christian mythos, as humankind’s punishment the ground will produce only thistles and weeds.

The sixth extinction is on the horizon.

There is controversy around humanity’s immense control over the quantity of food varieties, which have been radically reduced in number. In Pre-Columbian times in Peru there were over 3,000 varieties of potatoes growing in unique ecosystems. The Indigenous peoples would have considered each variety of potato to be a completely different type of crop. Over the past 500 years, with selective breeding programs and the spread of the potato worldwide, the global food system now depends on less than 30 varieties. Reliance on just three varieties of potato helped to precipitate the great Irish potato famine of the mid 19th century. Our ever-increasing dependence on soybeans and corn with reduced genetic diversity places humankind on the brink of the most tragic circumstance—that is, a worldwide catastrophe.

The organic agriculture ideal is to take spent land and regenerate it, to create sustainable agriculture systems. This highlights one of the challenges we face, the challenge of changing how we see the world.

Food companies are designed to maximize resources and monetary returns, rather than the methods used to regenerate the land and diversity of species. Corporate interests funnel genetics into a reduced sphere of diversity. Industrial farming with artificial commercially-produced inputs is all about farming as a necessity to continue to expand the population. From the Brazilian Amazon rainforest to the northern Boreal forests of Canada, generally accepted farming methods are to cut and burn the forest for land, strip the soils of nutrients by cropping, and then moving on to cut and burn more forests for more crop land.

At this point, there is no meaningful pushback from end consumers and farmers. The vast majority of people do not feel a strong inclination to turn the system around. Humans continue to consume unabated without concern. The consumer rhetoric is for the population to grow.

Expanding Our Approach

Hunters and gatherers were adapted to what nature provides. What was the trigger that catapulted humans into religion and agriculture? Perhaps there were evolutionary stressors that led humans to think that they could move beyond dependence on natural systems.

Genesis speaks of the knowledge of Good and Evil, where human beings think that they understand how things work, and then turn things to around to what they think most benefits humans. Bending nature to produce more than it naturally would, and then worshipping the human capacity to overcome natural processes.

Once you have the ears to hear the reductionist approach, it echoes in every news cycle. People are concerned about financial inflation first, then climate change and food security as afterthoughts. A shift is required in the way we see the world and each other. The solution is both spiritual and scientific.

“Thus is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective.” – David Suzuki

Marjorie Harris, IOIA VO and concerned organophyte.

Feature image: Göbekli Tepe detail. Credit: (CC) Davide Mauro.

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