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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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Your Land, Your Legacy

in 2022/Land Stewardship/Organic Community/Spring 2022

A Farm and Foodlands Owner’s Guide

By Michael Marrapese

The Foodlands Cooperative of BC has a bold vision—to secure farmland for farming for future generations. While the Agricultural Land Reserve offers some protection by restricting the allowable activities on farmland, it has had only a modest effect on the selling price and accessibility of farmland in BC. Our primary activity is to facilitate the acquisition of land by cooperatives, non-profit groups and charities, municipalities, or Indigenous communities.

In the summer of 2021 we published Your Land, Your Legacy: A Farm and Foodlands Owner’s Guide. The Guide is expressly designed for owners of farm and food-provisioning lands who wish to create a legacy by preserving their land for generations to come.

Written by Ava Reeve, the guide is a culmination of a two-year research project made possible by funding from the Law Foundation of BC and the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. It focuses on two particular processes to secure land for agriculture. One is to donate land to a community organization. Another approach is to register a covenant on a property. The guide covers both of these processes in detail.

North of town. Credit: Michael Marrapese.

For many farmers, selling the farm is a major part of their financial and retirement planning. However, selling their property often means it will not be used primarily for farming. In much of BC, farmland is being bought up and converted into recreational acreages, vacation homes, or rural estates—or for future real estate development.

Over the last five years the Foodlands Cooperative of BC has met with dozens of landowners who want to ensure their properties continue to be farmed and used for the benefit of their communities. We found that lawyers and estate planners are often unfamiliar with the unique legal and taxation statutes that apply to these situations, not only because it is unfamiliar but also because the process can be very nuanced and specific to each property and situation.

While many farmers are sympathetic to the plight of aspiring young farmers, transferring land by any other method than direct sale is a daunting process. As Chad Hershler, Executive Director of Deer Crossing the Art Farm observes, “transferring land ownership, legacy planning, formalizing a vision—these are all emotionally fraught, extremely challenging things to do, no matter the context. When it comes to food provisioning (and, in our case, culture-making), this is even harder.”

Cows make great neighbours. Credit: Michael Marrapese.

We engaged a team of legal experts to review existing legislation, and possible approaches to transfer land out of the speculative market, and present it in terms accessible to the layperson. “There is a gravitational pull towards doing what everyone else is doing, doing what comes easiest,” continues Hershler. “Every bit of help to move against this is crucial—and this guide is more than a bit of help. It clearly outlines steps we need to take, people we need to talk to, documents we need to draft. It takes something massive and breaks it down into simple achievable steps.”

The Foodlands Cooperative is exploring several avenues towards returning land to the public commons and out of the speculative market. While registered charities are one kind of qualified donee, the CRA recognizes a number of others. Under the Canadian Income Tax Act, qualified donees can often issue official donation receipts. Qualified donees can include the Crown at federal and provincial levels, municipal governments and other public bodies, and, interestingly, the United Nations. Many Indigenous governing bodies are also now registered as qualified donees.

When we began this project three years ago, there was an obvious need for clarity around the various options, processes, and costs of having land transferred to a land trust, either via donation or through other transfer mechanisms. In creating a plan for their estate and a succession plan for their farm operation, a landowner will want to understand the tax benefits or policies that will apply to their situation. The guide has an extensive section on Canadian tax law that explains the considerations when making a donation of land and the implications of various types of land transfer. It also lays out some practical examples of how tax law might be applied. There is a complete glossary of all the legal and financial terms to help make the material more useful and approachable.

The final section of the Guide lays out very specific steps for due diligence when a landowner is considering donating their property. Some seem quite obvious—engaging professionals such as lawyers and appraisers. Less obvious may be the need to have the property surveyed to confirm boundaries, to document encroachments and Right-of-Ways, and the existence of any environmentally sensitive or protected areas.

We are keen to pass this knowledge on to the general public through our our lawyer-reviewed guide. The guide will undoubtedly help to alleviate many of the challenges of planning farm and foodland trusts, lead to greater community access to foodlands, and to foster sustainable farming.

We see this as a first step in opening up possibilities for landowners to create a lasting legacy with their farmland.

Your Land, Your Legacy, A Farm and Foodland Owner’s Guide is available for free at foodlands.org/a-farm-and-foodland-owners-guide

Michael Marrapese lives and works at Fraser Common Farm Cooperative in the Fraser Valley on the unceded territory of the Kwantlen and Katzie peoples. An avid photographer, writer and musician he loves working on the farm and marvels at the beauty of nature. Though recently retired, he continues to be involved in various interesting projects and seems to be willing to travel at the slightest provocation.

Feature image: Tilling at Sunset. Credit: Michael Marrapese.

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2023 BC Organic Conference Recap By Stacey Santos Mentorship. Perseverance. Kindness. Relationships. More than words, these ideas were penned and

Pilgrims’ Produce: A 30 Year Legacy

in 2021/Grow Organic/Land Stewardship/Organic Community/Organic Stories/Summer 2021

How the Hettlers Embody Organic Principles (and Are Good at Growing Farmers)

Michelle Tsutsumi

Finding my way to Pilgrims’ Produce in the fall of 2009, when I wanted to learn how to garden, ended up changing my life. It sounds dramatic; however, witnessing and experiencing the ways in which Robert and Kathryn engage with the world impacted me in subtle ways, over time. Over a decade later, and with a more nuanced relationship with organics, I can see more fully how the Hettlers embody organic principles.

Not only have Robert and Kathryn stewarded the land they lived on, and with, for the past 30 years, using a combination of responsibility and innovation, they have done so with future generations in mind. One of the first things I remember Kathryn describing was how important it was to her and Robert to be growing good food for their family, friends, and wider community. The farm has been a special gathering space for the extended Hettler clan, serving as a central meeting point for children and grandchildren who are now dispersed around the world. So many incredible memories and feasts have been celebrated at Pilgrims’ Produce over the years!

A vintage photo of the Hettler Family. Credit: Pilgrims’ Produce.

Their thoughtful appreciation for people showed up in attentive conversations, as in really listening and asking pointed questions, as well as in random moments walking from one section of the farm to another. This caring way of being was reciprocated by many employees who would return to work at Pilgrims’ Produce year after year and, eventually, launch into their own farming with a solid base of learning and mentoring to draw from. Not to mention always feeling welcome to give Rob a call with questions or stop in for a visit that inevitably would include ‘shop talk.’

Employees who went on to create their own farms include Kate Murphy at Lakehead & Beyond Produce Society, Mark Uher at Mara Valley Produce, and Joel Hayhoe and Tessa Wetherill at Our Open Farm. Through the Young Agrarians Business Mentorship Program, Rob mentored Emily Jubenvill at Enderberry Farm. Folks who returned to or joined family farms include Eva-Lena Lang at Cedarstein Farm and me at Golden Ears Farm.

Many of these names are probably familiar to you because they have also engaged in actions that serve the organic community, or agriculture more broadly, through participation in Agriculture Advisory Committees, land matching, certifying body boards and committees, expanding food systems networks, and even in the role of Executive Director of COABC! This community involvement mirrors the years and years of Robert and Kathryn’s contributions and dedication to building the organic movement.

Kathryn and Robert sorting fruit. Credit: Alan Price.

Working at Pilgrims’ Produce was a beautiful mix of hard work, a buzz of activity—particularly in June, when you would see the quad and trailers bringing in the harvest on top of a steady interchange of vehicles belonging to the folks flocking in for u-pick strawberries—and the most amazing staff lunches (thank you, Kathryn!).

Pilgrims’ Produce was also a site for events like Shoots ‘n Blooms, CSA strawberry socials, and inter-farm potlucks. The importance of relationships and creating the time and space to nurture them was affirmed by example and reassuring words: “Take the time you need to visit your family. Not to worry, the weeds will be here when you get back.”

So many markets over the years! Robert at the market stand. Credit: Pilgrims’ Produce.

On March 31st, 2021, a sizeable group of people who have been impacted by Robert and Kathryn gathered over Zoom to share memories and stories of what the farm means to them. It served as both a celebration of Rob and Kathryn’s organic farming and community building and the transfer of the farm to Dan and Kat Saxton 30 years—to the day—after the Hettlers moved in!

Many named the beauty of the land, its healing capacity, and the generous-in-spirit nature of Robert and Kathryn as influencing them. Kate Murphy aptly described how Robert and Kathryn have been growing more than food, they have been growing farmers.

We love you Robert and Kathryn and are so pleased that you have kindred spirits in Dan and Kat to carry on the legacy of Pilgrims’ Produce. A legacy of care, stewardship, good food, and growing farmers!

Michelle Tsutsumi at Pilgrims’ Produce with the team. Credit: Alan Price.

We have the world to live in on the condition that we will take good care of it.

And to take good care of it, we have to know it.

And to know it and to be willing to take care of it, we have to love it.

~ Wendell Berry

pilgrimsproduce.com

Kathryn at market. Credit: Pilgrims’ Produce.

Michelle Tsutsumi grows food on the unceded land of Secwépemcul’ecw and, in doing so, acknowledges the tension inherent in the practice of agriculture and Indigenous-settler relations. As a communicator, she engages in difficult conversations around dominant cultural mindsets and structures so that we can transform them into a more just and equitable way of being.

Feature image: Farm families – Robert and Kathryn Hettler smiling with Dan and Kat Saxton and their children—the next stewards of Pilgrim’s Produce. Credit: Pilgrims’ Produce.

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Organic Stories: Tulaberry Farm – Syilx, Sinixt, and Ktunaxa Territory, Passmore, BC

in 2021/Land Stewardship/Organic Community/Organic Stories/Spring 2021

The Year the Butterflies Came Back: A Story of Transition at Tulaberry Farm

Hailey Troock

I picked up the phone one cold winter day in 2019 to a request from the owners and operators of Tulaberry Farm in the picturesque riverside community of Passmore, BC. Judi Morton and Alex Berland wanted to find some young and enterprising farmers to continue the legacy of their certified organic farm. After decades of farming in the Slocan Valley, where they raised their family and had become integral members of the local community, they had a beautiful space and knowledge to share.

A little more than a year later, Emily Woody and Nathan Wiebe, two farmers operating Confluence Farms out of Kelowna, BC, were searching for land. They had a dream to relocate their market garden and bakery start-up to the Kootenays, somewhere near Nelson, where they could establish roots for the long-term. In one season they had grown out of the backyard space they had started their farm on, selling through CSA shares and delivery.

All I had to do was introduce the two couples through the BC Land Matching Program (BCLMP), and the rest seemed to fall effortlessly into place—truly a confluence.

As Tulaberry and Confluence start down the path of transition together, it’s worth considering what farm transition is all about.

For me, it’s a million things. Last fall, our team at Young Agrarians released the BC Transition Toolkit for Non-Family Farm Transfer, and the process of researching and creating this resource provided us all with an in-depth understanding of a pretty complex topic: how do we transfer farms from one generation to the next, outside of the family? Something that stuck with me is how the mentorship available within the process of transition can be a fundamental part of the success of the incoming farm business.

New farmers face myriad challenges in today’s agricultural, economic, and climatic landscapes. It can take years to build up clientele, pay off start-up costs, establish secure sales channels for your products, learn the land and soil, mitigate increasing climatic variability, and more. Transitioning into an established farm can ease this learning journey, as the outgoing farmer passes along this critical information to their successors.

Nathan Wiebe and Emily Woody. Credit: Confluence Farm.

Judi came to be the steward of Tulaberry Farm when she purchased the land in 1968. She lived there for a few years before leaving, then coming back for a second stint. This is when Alex came into the picture in 1974. After 12 years together on the land they left to pursue other careers in Vancouver, where they stayed for two decades. Eighteen years ago, they relocated back to Tulaberry for good. Judi went from being an intensive care nurse at the children’s hospital to diving full-time into farming. She says the transition felt natural; though “people think they are unrelated, both are nurturing roles.”

Judi’s most prominent memory from her early years on the farm centre around her second season stewarding the land full-time. She refers to this as “the year the butterflies came back.” The planting of perennials, shrubs, and fruit bushes—food for the beautiful pollinators—breathed new life onto the land. Judi and Alex’s farming philosophy speaks to this. She says we “sought to leave the land better than we found it” and that they, like all of us, are stewards of the land we inhabit. They don’t feel they own the land: “though we bought it, we get the privilege to steward it,” she says.

Judi’s experience living in their community has evolved since those early years. “When we were first at Tulaberry before we left for 20 years, we were deeply embedded in our community. When we came back, we picked up much of the same community but also many new friends who had moved there.” Though many of the “old guard from 70s and 80s remain good friends,” she says, referring to her original cohort, “much of my social circle has centered around farming over the years.” Judi is also excited about the young families she has seen moving into the area over the past decade.

The Kootenay Organic Growers Society has played a big part in her farming community specifically. “Farming is a very lonely business,” she says, “and you are working alone a lot. Going to market was my social life; I was always so excited to see other farmers. When it was slow, we would congregate to the centre to share information and talk.”

The market garden at Tulaberry Farm. Credit: Tulaberry Farm

When Judi is 90, she says, “I want friends who are 60 and 70.”  Her strong attachment to the land she stewards and her desire to want to die there are part of the reason they pursued a land match. They had been looking for people to transition into Tulaberry to for more than a decade; aging in place remains important to them but it is “hard to watch fencing fall down on the land when you no longer have the energy to deal with it.”

For Judi and Alex, the BCLMP plays an important role, as “many young farmers need a leg up to get going, and retiring farmers want to age in place.” Working with hands-on support made them think about things that hadn’t come to mind and how to word things. She reflects on it as a great process, getting through negotiations to the point where “everyone was happy.”

Emily and Nathan came into farming at different times in their lives. Nathan was inspired by Emily. After growing up in a big city, he “was feeling burnt out and unhappy and wanted to be closer to nature and work that really mattered to me. The idea of growing food for a living had never crossed his mind until he met her,” he says, meaning Emily (on a dance floor, six years ago, no doubt!). He reflects on how Emily “showed me what was possible through farming and together we made our dreams of starting a farm a reality.”

Emily came to farming for a combination of reasons. “I wanted to do good in the world, felt a strong calling to do something about climate change and the state of the environment, and really liked good food.” She says she “had grown up with a big garden on an acreage and was always involved in growing food throughout my formative years. When I went to college, I began to explore my passion for food and farming more deeply. The work was so nourishing to me, I knew I wanted to be a farmer.”

While Nathan’s formal education is in business, marketing, and holistic nutrition and Emily studied ecological agriculture and community development, some of the soft and hard skills that have helped them in their farming career have surprised them. Nathan notes that “taking the time to really understand marketing, branding, and website design has helped immensely,” and recommended reading How to Build a Story Brand by Donald Miller and anything by Seth Godin.

“Baking skills have really come in handy, surprisingly! I’ve always had a passion for sweets and spent a year working for a small bakery in Edmonton,” says Emily. “I’ve spent a lot of time developing recipes that utilize what we are growing on the farm. Our value-added products have really helped to set us apart and bring a more diversified income stream to the farm.”

Before meeting Emily and Nathan, Judi compared finding compatibility between Tulaberry’s goals and those of new farmers to “waiting for a unicorn.” Over the years, they had lots of great young people out there working with them. She says she “saw a lot of people get into it and then realize how much work it is.” That’s why for her, finding farmers with a couple of years under their belt was important, so that she felt confident this was something they wanted as a long-term lifestyle.

Nathan, Emily, Judi, and Alex. Credit: Tulaberry Farm.

Compared to the idea she had of who she was looking for to transition the farm to, Judi says Emily and Nathan are, in short, “they are everything we ever wanted.” In more detail, she listed out the qualities that have been the most important for them and that Emily and Nathan embody in spades:

Good communication skills: “If you can’t talk together, it’s not going to work. If people harbour feelings and don’t communicate what’s bugging them or what they’re happy about, how do you make a relationship work?”

Experience in farming: They “didn’t want to start from scratch,” and Emily had four years of farming under her belt.

Off-farm income: “It’s hard to make a living on farming here; farms are small. I wasn’t convinced it can’t be done but it can present a huge hurdle if you don’t have something on the side. Nathan has his Level Up business to help support the farm in start-up.”

Being a generous spirit: “When I make dessert, I bring over some for them and they do the same. Their generosity of spirit matches ours.”

Reliability: “If someone says they will feed the chickens, we need to be able to walk away and know they will do it. Emily and Nathan have done everything they say they are going to do and more.”

Enthusiastic and energetic: Self-explanatory!

Judi says that having new farmers on their land has changed the way they experience it. “Like having a kid, you see the world fresh through their eyes. As snow melts and things come up, they are seeing it with fresh eyes and enthusiasm and I feel like my own has increased because of being able to see the farm through their eyes.”

For their first season on the farm, Emily and Nathan are planning on offering 20 different value-added products throughout the season and are particularly excited about having Judi and Alex as their mentors. “Mentorship means having someone to go to for support and guidance who is dedicated to helping us succeed,” Emily says. Having mentors has “really helped boost our confidence and given our farming operation a huge advantage over where we were last year. Judi and Alex have been farming in the Kootenays for so long and have such a great reputation in the community. Just by being associated with Tulaberry Farms we have noticed that people are a lot more receptive to us and are excited to see our new partnership.”

As a mentor, Judi sees her role this season “to work with them when they want me to work with them. It’s important that they don’t feel that they are being micromanaged or I’m looking over their shoulders.” She is confident that they know what they’re doing but not necessarily on this land, and that is where she sees her role in mentorship—though she also knows that on transplanting days, “having three sets of hands can make a big difference!”

Judi is inspired by the idea that “mentorship is something that flows both ways”—Emily has shown Judi how to make sourdough bread and frosting out of maple syrup and butternut squash—and in turn, Emily and Nathan are inspired by Judi and Alex’s “life story and dedication to their land.” “They essentially bought a raw piece of land more than 30 years ago and through sheer hard work and determination they slowly built a home in the woods and a farm, structure by structure, until it became the beautiful property that is it today.” This has shown the new farmers that “even if your dream lifestyle seems daunting to achieve, if you stick with it long enough and don’t give up, you can accomplish almost anything.”

This winter, their first on the farm, they were busy! “We added a bakery section to the online shop so that we can offer more than just vegetables,” says Emily. “We use chicken eggs from the farm, local cream when available, and locally-sourced grain that we mill using our Komo mill. This has helped to differentiate our business as well as increase our sales when we don’t have a lot of vegetables to sell throughout the winter. We’re doing row crops and Judi is teaching us how to do broiler chickens.”

Reflecting on the experience of sharing land with Emily and Nathan so far, Judi says she has been “pleasantly surprised with their generosity of spirit,” while Emily and Nathan spoke to how “easy and seamless it has been. Judi and Alex have been incredibly generous from the very beginning and we could tell they just want to see us succeed.”

Emily and Nathan aspire to one day transition from farmers markets and CSAs to a farm-to-table bakery they plan to call Pantry. “Our dream would be to be able to grow and produce as many ingredients for the bakery as we can to make it a true farm-to-table experience,” Emily says. As for where Judi sees herself and the farm in 20 years, she says, “at the age of 93, I hope to be taking care of chickens, even if I am not farming too much, but I hope the farm remains. I see so many possibilities—instead of withdrawing my energy, this new life on the farm is expanding it.”

The BC Land Matching Program is funded by the Province of British Columbia, with support from Columbia Basin Trust, Real Estate Foundation of BC, Bullitt Foundation, and Patagonia.

Hailey Troock grew up in the small agricultural community of Oyama, located in the Okanagan. Now based in Nelson, she spends her time connecting farmers, landholders, and allies in the Columbia Basin region as a Land Matcher with the BC Land Matching Program delivered by Young Agrarians.

Feature image: Tulaberry Farm nestled in the mountains. Credit: Tulaberry Farm

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Organic Stories: West Enderby Farm

in 2020/Crop Production/Grow Organic/Marketing/Organic Community/Organic Standards/Organic Stories/Past Issues/Winter 2020

From Carrots to COR

Darcy Smith

Carrots: “hard to grow, but easy to sell,” says Paddy Doherty, who farms at West Enderby Farm with his partner Elaine Spearling. When late November rolls around and most vegetable farmers are finally kicking up their feet for a few moments of rest, Paddy and Elaine’s farm is still a hub of activity. “It’s like having a dairy cow, you never get a break,” jokes Paddy. “You start selling in July and go until April. Farmers are on vacation and we’re still packing carrots three, four days a week.”

“Carrots are very intensive. When you’re not weeding, you’re harvesting or irrigating, no downtime.” But they’re worth it.

In 2011, Paddy and Elaine founded West Enderby Farm in 2011 on a 40-acre former dairy farm. They knew they wanted to pursue a wholesale business model. “We didn’t want to move up to the North Okanagan and immediately start competing with our friends at the Armstrong Farmers’ Market,” Paddy says. “So, we decided to grow a crop to sell to local grocery stores and wholesalers.” And there are never enough carrots to go around.

Hilling carrots at West Enderby Farm.

Plus, back when Paddy was involved in the early days of COABC, he remembers a wholesaler saying, “It’s great that you have broccoli for a month in the summer, but really, winter is our busy season. That’s when people want to buy vegetables and spend more time cooking.” An idea was planted, and decades later, when the pair wanted to relocate to the Okanagan and start farming again, it would bear fruit.

At the time, they didn’t know anyone who sold directly to grocery stores in any volume. It’s always difficult to break into the wholesale market: “you need volume to be able to even talk to them,” Paddy says, but over the last decade, the rise of local and organic food has shifted the marketplace. With consumer demand for local food, retailers are “much more open to the idea of buying from farmers, even though there’s a lot of hassle involved for them,” having to deal with a lot of little farms.

How did West Enderby Farm get a foot in the door, or, rather, a carrot on the shelf? “We needed a decent looking bag, some marketing, a barcode, but mostly we needed to be able to service them for at least six months with sufficient stock,” Paddy says. Today, Paddy and Elaine grow 50-80 tonnes of certified organic carrots a year, along with a handful of other crops, including cauliflower and beets, for the wholesale market.

Details of the carrot harvesting and sorting process.

On the farm, Elaine does the crop planning, soil analysis, and lots of field work, to name just a few. Paddy keeps the machines running and looks after organic inspections. They hire three or four workers over the growing season. Elaine also orders all their seed, and they’re very particular about quality. A current favourite is Bolero, because it “gets sweeter the longer it’s in storage, grows well and consistently, makes a nice shaped carrot, and has good germination and vigour,” says Paddy. But they’re always on the lookout for new varieties. The downside to Bolero is its brittleness, leading to breakage in machine harvesting and packaging. “Commercially, nobody would grow Bolero if they were any bigger than us.”

Paddy and Elaine both have deep roots in agriculture and BC’s organic community. Elaine has a degree in agricultural botany, and taught organic farming for many years at UBC Farm and in the UK. Today, she sits on the steering committee of the North Okanagan Land to Table Network when she’s not out in the field. Paddy is the President of Pacific Agricultural Society (PACS), a member of the National Organic Value Chain Roundtable, sits on the COABC board, and is a part of the Okanagan Regional Adaptation Working Group for the Climate Action Initiative.

Look back 30 years and Paddy and Elaine were raising sheep in Quesnel, and watching regional certification bodies pop up around the province, with “differing standards, and differing ideals and procedures,” Paddy remembers. “It was quite interesting. The government approached us, and there was a group of aligned certification bodies that came together, that was the initial nucleus of COABC.”

Elaine sorting carrots.

Paddy was volunteering with the Cariboo Organic Producers Association (COPA), and tapped into the provincial movement. “I was always an environmentalist, it’s the way I was raised,” he says. “Organic farming is my way of doing what I believe in as my mode of production.”

At the time, there was new legislation in BC that would allow the development of a provincial regulation around organic. Not everyone was on board with a mandatory label, so they moved forward with a voluntary program in 1992, the BC Certified Organic Program (BCCOP). [Editor’s note: the Organic Certification Regulation passed in 2018, making certification mandatory for use of the word organic.]

About helping build the BCCOP, Paddy says, “I guess I enjoyed it, getting people together and getting agreements, and had a talent for it, so I kept going.” As he puts it, “I just hung around and kept on showing up and learning. We were inventing new things, the Ministry of Agriculture helped a lot but we had to invent a lot of it.” Then came the development of Pacific Agricultural Certification Society (PACS). “I learned a lot in that process, starting a commercial CB from scratch and writing a quality manual for that,” he says.

Further details of the carrot harvesting and sorting process.

At a national level, in response to an edict from the EU requiring a national regulation to ship organic products to Europe, “fruit growers in BC were very concerned about their access to EU markets.” Paddy led the development of a project to get an organic regulation together in Canada to ensure access to EU markets.

From there, Paddy when on to work with IFOAM, where he “met some really cool people, and traveled, and made relationships that are important to me today,” and with ISEAL as the standards manager, working in the global sustainability standards community. “There’s so much more beyond organic, there’s the Forest Stewardship Council, the Marine Stewardship Council, and a hole pile you haven’t heard of—all trying to save the world in different ways, using this system of consumer pull, and voluntary standards systems.”

Today, Paddy is busy working on the latest standards review, and leading a project to attempt to solve the problem of a brand name inputs list, as a project of the Organic Value Chain Roundtable. The Roundtable is “a place where leaders of the organic industry can come together to solve problems,” explains Paddy, and it’s been instrumental in bringing together a Canada’s disparate organic movement, from coast to coast, and up and down the value chain, from retailers, to producers, and everyone in between. “It didn’t turn us into one organization, but it definitely helped us focus our energy.”

Bins of washed carrots

“Organic may only be 2% of the market,” Paddy says, but “we have come leaps and bounds.” A small market share belies the outsize impact that organic farming has had on agriculture as a whole. “I do see change, change in production and in the market, towards more sustainable production. What we’ve done with our very strict standard is challenged other types of production to meet our bar.”

“As soon as you put organic carrots on the shelf, it shows consumers that they have a choice, and then the non-organic farmers are faced with, ‘How can I differentiate myself?’ It just changes the dynamic. It encourages a move towards more environmentally friendly production.”

Back on the farm, Paddy and Elaine are thinking about what’s next. They’re looking for someone to take over the carrot business, Paddy says, “but I wouldn’t mind growing cauliflower, that does well, we could grow cauliflower in the summer and take the winters off.”

West Enderby Farm’s view of the cliffs

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

All photos: West Enderby Farm

 

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Organic Stories: Gabriola Food Hub

in Fall 2018/Organic Community/Organic Stories

A Two-Wheeled Ride through Gabriola’s Growing Local Food Economy

Hannah Roessler

Graham Bradley is a busy guy. I catch him on a rare day off to talk about the Gabriola Food Hub, but we end up delving into the importance of cultural shift, decolonization, green transportation, feeding passions, and systems thinking. The spill over into all of these topics comes as no surprise—so many of us land-based workers, dreamers, and thinkers recognize and ponder the layers of complexities and interconnectivities encountered when engaging on food systems work on any level. Graham is a dynamic individual who spans several roles in the food system on Gabriola Island. He is someone who is clearly driven to make a difference, and has fully invested his whole self into this pursuit.

Take his work with the Gabriola Food Hub (GFH), a collective marketing hub made up of three main partner farms: Heart and Soil Farm, Good Earth Farm, and 40×40 farm. Not only is he the founder of the GFH, but he is also the “aggregator, communicator, and distributor.” He is the guy who pulled the farms together and connects the farms to various markets, and he is the one you will see delivering all the produce—he has roles in both the center of the hub, as well as the spokes.

Graham is quick to assert that he is not inventing something new, and is generous while listing off his many mentors. He names, with much gratitude, those who taught him about farming and marketing (Ferm Melilot in Quebec, Saanich Organics in Victoria, Ben Hartman’s Lean Farm approach, and more), those who helped him with legal agreements for land sharing (Young Agrarians and other generous legal advisors), his business mentorship through Young Agrarians (with Niki Strutynski from Tatlo Road Farm), the chef on Gabriola Island who last year solidly ordered produce from him every week (Kellie Callender from Silva Bay Restaurant). He even tells me about Josh Volk, the person who inspired him to build his delivery bike, named Pepper, on which he does all of the deliveries for the GFH. Something that I really appreciate about Graham is how much he obviously values the relationships that he is cultivating through his food growing—this seem to be his own personal heart hub from which all the other spokes of his work flow.

While the GFH echoes other models of marketing that exist in the small scale organic farm world, there are of course differences. These are all tied distinctly to the difference in “place”—all the variations and oscillations in the GFH are distinctly their own, as they seek to find their own dynamic equilibrium. Each of the participating farms is striving to find what model of farming and marketing works for the particular scale and sites that they work and live within, in every realm. Every farm business has to find the right flow that works in their particular bioregion, and it’s clear that when Graham talks about the GFH, he is very much focused on the interconnected systems of ecology, economics, and community that are distinct to Gabriola Island.

Graham refers to what they at GFH are aiming for as “super-hyper-local”—and they’re not pulling any punches. He’s been working tirelessly with his partners, Dionne Pepper-Smith and Katie Massi from Heart and Soil, Lynn from Namaste Farm, Rebecca from 40×40 Farm (which Graham also co-manages), and his land partner and co-farmer Rosheen Holland at Good Earth Farm, to sell everything they grow right on Gabriola Island.

In the past, these farmers usually had to go over to Cedar on Vancouver Island to sell their produce at the market. Now, with the GFH entering its third year of business, those days are done as they move towards the super-hyper-local vision. Their biggest commercial customer is the Village Food Market, the largest grocery store on Gabriola Island. “We are actually managing to replace the lettuce [that is usually sold at the market], lettuce that comes from off-island, with our lettuce. It’s exciting,” says Graham. They also run a box program, which is really important to their business, and is something that they hope to continue growing.

Another approach that helps them realize this super-hyper-local vision is how all the farms work as a team, both together and with their environment. When I ask Graham if the farms do their crop planning together, he says “well, the farms plan it on their own”. The GFH farms really embrace each of their unique microclimates, which allow different crops to thrive. They don’t try and do it all, all the time, but they work with the strength of the local ecology of each farm site. Good Earth Farm tends to flood every year, but they find that their best spring crop is lettuce, and their best winter crop are storage crops: they do grow some chard, but harvest it, roots and all, and keep it in the cold room for continued harvest into winter. At 40×40 Farm, they are really focused on salad greens. At Heart and Soil, their site is particularly good for growing early on in the spring, and they “are a bit warmer so they grow loads of tomatoes,” says Graham. “They don’t have root maggot, so their radishes and Hakeuri turnips are so beautiful that we’ve stopped growing ours.”

It’s almost as though Graham frames the land as the ultimate leader of their little team: “it’s really just the geography that is key to making all of this work in the way it does.” And when it comes to enjoying the bounty of the island, they don’t stop at just farms. “If I see grapes,” Graham exclaims, with a fair share of eye twinkle, “and it’s in someone’s backyard, I will knock on the door and ask them if I can sell it for them.”

This opportunistic approach and ability to be flexible is bound, as any farmer knows, to create quite a bit of extra work. And in a busy farm season, it seems hard to imagine taking on extra bits and pieces. But it seems to fit in Graham’s wider hopes for the food system on Gabriola. We had a long discussion about trying to think a bit more outside of the traditional agriculture box, hoping to understand the potential for managing the broader ecosystem for food in a careful way.

“I think we can have a full and complete food system here, we just have more to learn” says Graham, respectfully acknowledging the long term management of a food system by the Snuneymuxw, long before agriculture as we know it arrived to the island. Graham is keen to continue learning how to incorporate a broader vision, and in the meantime, on the peaty grounds of Good Earth Farm they are busy planting Malus fusca, relying on the embedded local knowledge of that native rootstock to help it withstand rainy winters.

With all the successful strides they’ve made, trying to effectively respond to the dynamic nature of a particular bioregion, of a particular place, must certainly be challenging. I ask Graham about this, and he names some common themes that most farmers struggle with: the desire for more restaurants to get on board with buying local produce, how small their market is, how difficult it is to rely on commercial clients, being burnt out and overworked, etc.

I am particularly curious about how he manages his own work-load, because as every other farmer I know, he seems to have several jobs and commitments. He is also the Chair of the Economic Development Advisory group on Gabriola Island, as well as the National Farmers Union Youth Advisor for BC. Graham is practically bursting with energy even as we quietly sit and chat, and he is so clearly committed to his vision of a better food system and green transport—but he admits to it being overwhelming at times.

Then he explains to me the moment of his day which feeds his energy and desire to push through and keep striving, and I’m left with a clear picture painted in my mind: Graham on Pepper, his bright red electric cargo bike, loaded with veggie boxes, ripping full speed down a hill framed with soaring trees, exuberantly singing Janis Joplin tunes to scare away the deer, and periodically yelling gleefully “the future is NOW (insert expletive)!”

Check out the Gabriola Food Hub: gabriolafoodhub.com

Hannah Roessler has farmed in Nicaragua, Washington, and BC on permaculture famers, polyculture cafetals, organic market farms and a biodynamic vineyard. She has an MA in Environmental Studies, and her research is focused on climate change and small-scale organic farming. She currently farms on the Saanich Peninsula on Vancouver Island.

Feature image from Quinton Dewing. All other photos from Graham Bradley.

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Ask an Expert: How Will You Keep the Farm Going?

in 2018/Ask an Expert/Organic Community/Organic Standards/Winter 2018

Family + Change = Succession Planning Basics

Karen Fenske

For the ten years I have been involved in BC agriculture I have watched a generation of owners and parents run successful operations. Now that they are considering retirement, forced or by choice, and the next generation is looking to secure equity, to own something, change is imperative. Succession planning defines what your future “could look like” and helps you get there. In essence, you are defining significant changes to your family structure, roles, dynamics, and relationships.

Unfortunately, succession and estate planning often boil down to conflict over money, power and assets. It can be made more complicated because individuals may not engage at the same pace for a variety of reasons including being afraid of change or the very real belief that if we talk about something bad, it will happen.

The succession planning process, while intense, can involve coaching family members and significant others to a harmonious “new normal”. It is preferable to maximize the benefits and minimize the negative effects. Here are the four underlying steps of succession planning:

Acknowledge What is Changing

KEY: Define the “new normal”, the goals, options, and benefits

Say them out loud and write them down.

What are the results? Benefits, risks, and consequences? What is left behind? Is it “an old way of doing things” that doesn’t work anymore?

How do you feel? Angry, relieved, ashamed, excited, depressed, afraid, anxious, sad, etc. This is very personal and unpredictable. The changes may be big to you and not to others.

Focus on your specific needs and situation rather than others’ reactions.

Accept Change

KEY: Make choices.

You may have an open mind and be excited—or resist, complain, avoid, ignore, undermine, and sabotage.

Change is both positive and negative. Gather information and listen to the rationale, then look for “both sides of the coin” for yourself and others involved.

Name the losses and grieve them.

Remember that what seems “wrong” now may be the “right thing” in the future.

Adjust to Change

KEY: Maximize the advantages and opportunities then minimize and compensate for the negative aspects of the change and the new situation.

What needs to be abandoned or tweaked?

Plan for yourself. What do you need? How can you be involved?

Anticipate Change

KEY: Put your “eyes on the horizon”. Research trends. Talk. Prepare.

Evaluate the results of the changes and modify.

Recognize the decisions you make today may change and evolve over time.

The work we do to transition operations to the next set of hands is critical to a wide variety of issues including food security, good health, and our economy. You may find it difficult to start the conversation; however, I encourage you to take the first steps. You can talk, plan, innovate, and modify—then relax as the plans roll out. It is reasonable to enlist a third party, such as counselor, lawyer, or financial planner to manage the conversations. It is worth the effort and time to get things right.

Karen Fenske is a financial consultant with Investors Group and is licensed to sell Mutual Funds and Insurance in BC. She has a degree in business and mediation skills, and has provided strategic planning and business development for 25 years. She lives in Vernon with her husband. She enjoys spending time with her two young adult children, in her garden, hiking, skiing, travelling around the province, and watching murder mysteries. 

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Your Land, Your Legacy

A Farm and Foodlands Owner’s Guide By Michael Marrapese The Foodlands Cooperative of BC has a bold vision—to secure farmland

Nanoose Edibles

in Farmer Focus/Organic Stories
Barb and Lorne Ebell, Nanoose Edibles

Hannah Roessler

It Takes Dedication, Devotion, and a Community to Raise a Farm

I had been trying for weeks to make it to Nanoose Edibles Farm to visit Barbara and Lorne Ebell, but bad weather on the Malahat Highway turned me back each time. The day I finally made it was sunny and warm, and I could barely contain my excitement.

I’d recently read an interview with Barbara Ebell in a local paper, explaining the hardships encountered by farmers on Vancouver Island; it was a deliciously blunt article, and she caused quite a few ripples. I had heard great things about this remarkable woman, but nothing quite prepared me for the amazingly accomplished yet humble person I met. “I’m a farmer and I really like to farm,” says Barbara, “but I’m always under pressure to do more. People have been phoning me since that article saying ‘now what are we going to do?’”

It’s understandable that folks are approaching the Ebells for solutions. Barbara and her husband Lorne Ebell have a successful farm business…which they started only after successful careers in forestry and agriculture. Over tea and cookies, we discussed their fascinating farm backgrounds, and it’s clear that agriculture has always run deep for them; it’s in their blood.

Barbara’s mother was born on a large estate farm in England, and her Swedish father emigrated to Golden, BC, where the family sold farmed vegetables and fruit, fish from the Columbia River, and wild game to the CPR. Lorne, an agriculturalist through and through, attended school in Manitoba and Alberta before taking a job in the Ministry of Forestry. After several years of working in the Canadian government, Barbara and Lorne moved to Liberia, Africa where Lorne was Head of Botanical Research for the Firestone Rubber Company. They spent seven years in Liberia, working on a huge plantation housing 13,000 residents.

As Barbara recalls, “The women were excellent farmers and wonderful marketers. My collards were only regular size and theirs were the size of small bushes!” I find myself thinking that Barbara could probably grow collards the size of trees if she wanted to, but I don’t say that.

After a brief stint working in Guatemala, and then several years in the state of Bahia in Brazil, they returned to Canada where Lorne went back to working in Forestry Research and Barbara took a position with the Ministry of Agriculture in the Policy Branch. After the adoption of Canada’s Employment Equity Act in 1986, provincial governments followed suit and Barbara became the first Manager of Women’s Programs for the Ministry of Agriculture to help “push the envelope” of women’s advancement in the government.

I find myself thinking that Barbara could probably grow collards the size of trees if she wanted to, but I don’t say that.

As they crept closer to retirement age they began to contemplate what their next steps would be, “We thought…hmmm, what should we do now? Well, we’ve got farming in our blood, so we should farm!” says Barbara with a laugh. Walking around their beautiful farm, I’m having trouble resolving my image of “retirement” with the dug pond, drained land, tool wizardry shop, seed saving shed, greenhouses, seedling carousel, orchard, blueberries, and more. Lorne describes how they started farming on weekends and holidays, driving up from work in Victoria to clear 12 arable acres of blackberries and roses… and I am firmly set in my feeling of awe.

Nanoose Edibles

Everyone on the Farm Needs to Farm

Early on they focused on strawberries, which their daughter advised them to price at five dollars a pound because “if we don’t start that high people will never pay more… and we can’t really go up from that even today!” says Barbara with a smile. “But we can sell every strawberry we produce. We started with the assumption that we would grow high-end organic food, because otherwise you’re just producing cheap food for people and working your head off! And you’re not really getting anywhere.”

Barbara and Lorne were among the first island farmers to sell direct to local restaurants. They were ahead of the game in the early days, but sales have started to drop as big box stores mushroom up all along the highway headed up island. They have a beautiful and successful on-farm market — people come from far and wide to buy their produce, and customers are encouraged to walk around the farm and have a look at what’s growing. They sell their vegetables, plants, and eggs, as well as grain, flours, homemade soups, honey, fish, salad mix, and cookies (that I ate several of), and much more, and they are open every day during the summer time. Profits from their off-farm sales (CSA and farmers markets), farm sales, and restaurants are roughly equal.

If you have your fingernails painted gold, well, that might make you think twice about farming.”

When I asked if they hire retail help, Barbara firmly stated, “Everyone on the farm, needs to farm. Can’t be a bookkeeper or a vendor or answer the phone without knowing how to farm, otherwise you can’t possibly answer a question intelligently about the produce or do your job properly. If you have your fingernails painted gold, well, that might make you think twice about farming.”

She says this with a hearty laugh and her blue eyes twinkle something fierce, and I glance down and take comfort from my own dirty fingernails and calloused hands.

Building the Future: A Farmers’ Co-operative

“You get these really wonderful people working for you, and you can’t pay them minimum wage! You have to honor what they are doing. This year we are setting the foundation for a farmers’ cooperative so that by next year they [the workers] will be running the farm, not us. We will stay on as members so we can help them make decisions. We might come have a peek to make sure they are getting things right and sticking to the program. The idea is to put the farm itself into a partnership,” explains Barbara.

Succession planning is tough for many farmers, and though it is clear that the Ebell family is an environmentalist gang, and everyone loves the farm, each family member is out doing other things in the world. Putting the farm into a partnership promises to be an exciting way forward to keep this land producing food for a very long time.

Although partnerships can also be difficult to navigate, the Ebells are clearly grateful for their farm workers. Barbara is generous with praise, pointing out things on the farm that different workers have done or made. As she says, “You can have all the education in the world, but if you’re not practical on the ground you can’t be paid for the fact you went to university — not on a farm. You have to be paid for what you actually produce.” This honoring of practical skill sets is echoed in the meticulous attention to detail in their well-designed farming systems. Lorne’s mechanical and technical acumen is astonishing; walking into his workshop is like walking into a wizard’s den.

Nurturing the Land is Everyone’s Responsibility

Barbara believes that while farmers are here to grow food for people in the community, it’s the community’s responsibility to ensure that continues. As she says, “That is the missing piece of the equation if you really think about it. Farmers have to keep producing, set proper prices for themselves, make sure there is enough supply for people to buy – but the rest is not the farmer’s responsibility, it’s a social responsibility. Public participation and advocacy doesn’t really happen. And if you don’t push it or fight for it, it just won’t happen.”

Barbara has many great ideas for the future of farming — more education, apprenticeships, more support from the public— but it’s hard to take all these things on while farming at the same time. “If you go anywhere else in the world, you’ll see it happen — the farmer farms! You don’t have to get all gussied up and see the premier, and tell them they should be buying your vegetables!” But their example is inspiring — talking with Barbara has the distinct effect of making me want to visit the Premier immediately to demand better agricultural policies. While wearing my farming clothes. No gussying.

Their example is inspiring — talking with Barbara has the distinct effect of making me want to visit the Premier immediately to demand better agricultural policies.

On the drive back to Victoria I’m thinking about many things, mainly about how great it has been to hang out with such an amazing woman in agriculture. She ended our visit with this wonderful piece of advice, “Farming just gobbles up your life and your time, so you need to have other loves in your life. If you run into a really long tedious spell and you are frozen in for 3 or 4 months, you start to really think ‘I don’t like this.’ It’s not because you don’t like farming – it’s because you don’t like your life! Ha! And in the summertime you are working like hell, but you need to socialize. You know that what you do is crazy, but you don’t feel as crazy when there are others there with you; you need to make fun of it.”

And with that she gives a little nod, and as I share a smile with this twinkling-eyed wise woman, I think about all we can learn from her.

Check out the many videos on the Nanoose Edibles Youtube channel!

Hannah Roessler has farmed in Nicaragua, Washington, and BC on permaculture farms, polyculture cafetals, organic market farms and a biodynamic vineyard. She has an MA in Environmental Studies, and her research is focused on climate change and small-scale organic farming. She currently farms on the Saanich Peninsula on Vancouver Island.

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