13. Organic Farming

In this episode of our Farm to Food podcast, we dig into the realities behind organic farming, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs, consumer trust, the use of pesticides in organic production, and the labelling of organic products.

In This Episode

• What defines an organic farm in Canada
• The difference between conventional and organic pesticides
• Why some pesticides are still permitted in organic farming
• How CSA programs connect consumers directly with local farms
• The costs and challenges of organic certification
• Whether “organic” always means small-scale or local
• Consumer confusion around labels, marketing, and transparency
• The future of regenerative and sustainable agriculture

Hugh Maynard speaks with his neighbour, Steve Lalonde, about organic field crops and his transition to organic farming in 2000.

Sarah Rennie talks with Fred Thériault from the Réseau des fermiers-ères de famille / Family Farmers Network (RFF) about CSA programs and the role of the RFF.

Sarah also speaks with Jamie and Nora Quinn of La Terre Bleue about their farm and what it was like being one of the first CSA farms in the region.

She then speaks with Jess Elwell from the CSA farm Coop les Jardins de la Résistance about the importance of certification, the use of pesticides in organic farming, and organic labelling.

Callan Forrester wraps up the episode with conversations with consumers about if, when, and why they choose organic products.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Farm to Food podcast.

We’d like to thank our sponsors for helping bring this initiative to life: Desjardins, the Livestock Breeders’ Association and Quinn Farm in Notre-Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot for their promotional support.

We also wish to thank the Community Media Strategic Support Fund and the Government of Canada for their financial support for this project, as well as the Bourses d’initiatives en entrepreneuriat collectif for their contribution toward equipping the podcast studio.

This program is made possible thanks to the dedicated work of the volunteer directors on the board of Châteauguay Valley Community Information Services (CVCIS), a non-profit social enterprise with charitable status. We would love your support to help keep this podcast going.

Donations can be made at farmtofood.ca, and we can issue tax receipts for donations over $25.

Farm to Food Podcast Credits:

Hugh Maynard – Host

Jackie Rourke – Producer

Sarah Rennie – News Editor

Callan Forrester – Reporter

Stacey Pennington – Audio Production

Dianna Chycki, sales & marketing

…and of course, Farmer Phil — who’s farm-tastic!

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:00

Bonjour my farmastic friends, farmer Phil here. And it's a big debate between Stephanie and I. What do we use in the garden? Are we using chemical fertilizers? Are we using compost? A mix of both? Hmm. The big dilemma. What we do here at the farm is a mix of conventional agriculture and organic. We do a uh integrated pest management. Uh, we do use chemical fertilizers and pesticides here only as a last resort. Um we do use uh pesticides that are approved for organic uh production. We'll do the sulfur, the copper, and the dormant oil. But there's one theory that we've stolen from organic agriculture that I really, really uh appreciate, and that is the idea that we're all part of one big ecosystem. And the more we know about that ecosystem, the better we can produce food and control our pests. That is one thing I truly appreciate about organic agriculture. So without further ado, haha, we're gonna cover exactly that. Organic agriculture. What is it all about? Enjoy.

SPEAKER_09 1:20

Welcome to the Farm to Food Podcast. I'm Hugh Maynard, publisher of the Glenar newspaper, the team that brings you this podcast every two weeks. The Farm to Food Podcast is presented to you by Desjardins and supported by the Livestock Breeders Association and Quinn Farm. The theme of this episode is organic farming, a fringe movement beginning in the 1960s and 70s. Most supermarkets today have sections and shelves specifically for organic products and represents nearly ten billion dollars in sales across Canada. Organic food is that which is produced using farming systems that do not use synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, reduce negative effects on the environment while maintaining soil fertility and supporting animal welfare. Organic food products cannot contain, for example, artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives, nor if the farming process has used genetic engineering as well as growth hormones or routine use of antibiotics. In this episode, we speak to several organic farmers about their experiences, as well as some consumers on how they view organic produce.

Sarah & Hugh intro

SPEAKER_09 2:38

To get us started today, the Greeners News editor, Sarah Rennie, joins us now to discuss organic farming, something she knows quite a bit about because she is an organic farmer. Welcome, Sarah.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Hello.

SPEAKER_09 2:50

So when did you start farming organically? Not in the 60s, I know that. So uh and how was the certification process?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

So we um we we were certified organic right from the get-go. Um we took uh a plot of land that we was, you know, nice and located behind our house and we worked on it. We drained some land and and we became certified right away. Started our farm 12 years ago, and um yeah, we've been we've been going from there. We rent some land now, we've expanded, we've got four greenhouses. Um and uh yeah, it's been an incredible uh up and down run, I have to say, because we started our family in the same year. And so uh yeah, we we had a lot of learning to do very quickly.

SPEAKER_09 3:39

Right. And I'm quite sure that everything we're gonna talk about in this episode, from the weather to marketing to um um issues with uh you know bugs and all that kind of stuff that are more difficult to deal with on an organic basis, were all things that you've had to deal with uh through the course of your uh farming history.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Yep, and uh me and my partner, we were both rookies when we started. Neither of us grew up um, you know, really in farming. My husband was born and raised in Toronto, and um I grew up here sort of adjacent to farming. Uh my my one side of my family is in dairy transport, and the other side was in, you know, a dairy farm. Um but really not attached to any kind of of particular farming. We just always had gardens. And so yeah, it's the the learning curve is is gigantic when you get into it and you start realizing everything um that a conventional farmer does, an organic farmer also does fertilizing, pesticide use, um, you know, dealing with bugs, dealing with weeds. Weeds are man. Weeds are the worst.

SPEAKER_09 4:42

Right. It's uh it's always backbreaking to get into that type of work on a market garden farm. So let's get started.

Hugh speaks with Steve Lalonde

SPEAKER_09 4:49

Um I spoke with a neighbor, Steve Lelonde, who purchased his family's home farm in Ormstown, Quebec in 1984. Along with his wife Lorraine, they decided to begin the transition to organic, and their first fields were certified organic in 2000. Today, Talagorum Farm has 220 acres under certification, growing grain corn, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa, and two varieties of popcorn. He told me that farmers who want to go organic have to deal with a delay in getting certified.

SPEAKER_11 5:28

Well, certification um is your crop can be certified from 36 months from the last use of a prohibited substance. So if your timing is right and uh say your last herbicide use was in June, well, in your third year of production, come September, your crops would be eligible to be certified. So it's essentially a two to three year, depending on your management and what your usage was of a prohibited substance, it can be two to three years uh uh harvest cycle before you get certified. And there is a an annual inspection and record keeping on our on our part as well for uh field uh operations and selling who we sold to, how much, uh when things were moved, what silos were filled, when did we inspect the vehicles that were hauling our grain away to make sure they were clean, paying attention to the little details that uh they have to keep on top of. We were fortunate that we had a um commercial chicken operation that was conventional, not organic. And we are in the organic industry, you are allowed to use conventional manure on your crops. Uh you have to respect a withdrawal period from the time of application to harvest. We use a lot of intercropping. That is um in the cereals, we will typically plant a legume, which would be clover, hairy vetch, uh, something along those lines.

SPEAKER_09 7:06

I also asked Eve about how they manage weeds without being able to use a herbicide.

SPEAKER_11 7:11

Timing is uh of the utmost importance for uh uh weed control. If we were to put our crop in the ground too early when the ground is cold and it takes a week or two for the crop to emerge, we've given the weeds a week or two to get established. And uh speaking from past experience, that is a major headache in grain corn. Corn is slow to grow, slow to cover the ground, and that's where we run into trouble. I would say corn is probably our most problematic crop in our weed control management uh rotation. Uh soybeans, uh in my opinion, are the simplest. And the winter cereals, as long as they get established and um get a good head start in the spring, they will outcompete the weeds. And the winter cereals will also help break up the weed cycle. Since we'll be harvesting earlier than what the weeds are mature at, we'll be harvesting the cereals earlier than what the weeds are mature at, we will be able to cut them before they go to seed and help break their their cycle. So timing is a big factor, weather conditions as well. If we get the right weather, we'll have the exceptional corn. If we get weather that doesn't cooperate with us like we've had the last couple of years, we have more weeds in the corn than we would uh like. Soybeans, on the other hand, in my experience, very easy. Uh they come out of the ground fast, they cover fast, you can weed, they're they're they're much more flexible when you're cultivating than the uh the corn is.

SPEAKER_09 8:53

So one of the other things that organic farmers have to deal with is the fact that um because they can't use some of the conventional materials in in uh producing their crops, they they lose a little bit of the cost advantage uh because they have to substitute with other processes such as mechanical weeding. And so it affects the uh the economics. So, Sarah, let's let's delve into that part about the the money that is being made, the economics of organic farming versus traditional farming.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

I think, you know, what you said is exactly true on a certainly on a an organic vegetable farm, um you know, y you're hand weeding a lot of the times, or you're weeding with, you know, like you said, very rudimentary tools in a lot of ways. Most of us have tractors at this point, but you're still looking at a lot of just heavy labor that goes into organic farming, a little bit less, possibly in the the the grain industry. But as Steve, I'm sure that you know, it it there the the work level is still there. And he must be dealing with a crazy grain market as well.

SPEAKER_09 9:56

Well he dives into that. Um I talked to him about the economics of organic farming from a cash crop, as we say, a field crops where you grow grains like corn and and wheat and oats. Um and he gives us some insights about uh profits that can be involved in organic farming.

SPEAKER_11 10:12

Over the years, the organic industry has taken off and flourished. Uh for quite a number of years, we were seeing growth rates of 20%. And um which is, you know, in in the grain market, that's exceptional in in my opinion. The markets have fluctuated uh quite a bit. They've settled in at a very reasonable price. Our organic soybeans that we grew last year, we were able to market for, I believe was uh $1,125 a ton. And our yields in the soybeans, our yields don't suffer. We'll run with the herd on yields in in soybeans. Where our farm struggles is the grain corn. Because of the the limited amount of manure we're able to apply, and especially in the last couple of years, when we've had dry summers, our cover crops have not been what they should have been. So we were lacking a little bit of fertility for the corn. Corn right now, um I just heard from a neighbor who talked to his friend who sold some organic corn at six hundred and fifty dollars a ton. Which is uh that's that's that's that's very good.

SPEAKER_09 11:30

One of Steve's very successful crops is popcorn. He grows two varieties and he swears it tastes better than the packaged stuff you find in the stores. Have you ever grown popcorn, Sarah?

SPEAKER_01 11:42

No, no, we've never tried to grow popcorn on our farm. Uh we tried to grow sweet corn and it was uh uh horrible failure. Really, the the raccoons found it very easily and quickly and they ate all of it. I don't even think we got one one ear. But I'm probably I'm I'm entirely certain that I have eaten more of his popcorn than is healthy um in my lifetime. Their popcorn is the whitest um most it's it's incredibly bright. It's called white lightning, some of it, and it's just crunchier, it's dil it's more delicious, it's hard to explain, but it is the best popcorn I think in the world.

SPEAKER_09 12:23

Yeah, and he he also produces what they call a b uh a dark variety, it's called Midnight Blue. Um and I have to tell you there's nothing better than um uh chomping on some of uh Steve and Lorraine's popcorn while you go habs go, right? It's a great hockey game uh snack. So anyway, I asked Steve what his advice would be for farmers who would like to try their hand at going organic.

SPEAKER_11 12:45

The big thing is pay attention, look around, ex do some experiments at home first. That's what we did. We did, you know, we'd turn the fertilizer off on a few rows of corn and just have the manure there to feed the crop and see what the difference was. And if you can't tell the difference and you don't see a difference, then you can see where it's viable and you can expand on that research. And you know, and then you experiment with your weed control, talk to somebody, what equipment do they have, what what would they not buy again, what would they really get sooner than what they uh you know, purchase something sooner than they did. What what are the tools that are really gonna help you?

SPEAKER_09 13:25

So, cash crop is one area for organic production, um, field crops as we say, and we've had a good uh run through with uh with Steve Lalonde on on that type of production. Now we're gonna take a look at organic vegetables because those are these are the products that probably most consumers are familiar with because there are sections in the supermarket, there are farmers markets which uh the organic uh producers use a lot to to uh sell, as well as the uh community uh supported agriculture, the baskets that people buy, um a lot of that is focused on organic production. So, Sarah, tell us a little bit about uh producing organic vegetables.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

And one of the things I really liked or appreciated about what Steve was saying um was when he was talking about just experimenting, and certainly when you're starting out as an organic farmer, that's what you're doing. You're just experimenting, trying to figure out what works, what doesn't. You have to figure out what kind of soil you have, you need to figure out what kind of bugs you have very quickly, you need to figure out just how how you work with all of those different things too, because it's a it's a very different way of working to to be growing something organically. And one of

Sarah speaks with Fred Thériault

SPEAKER_01 14:35

the most interesting things that I think we found um as you know relatively young farmers uh getting into agriculture was the uh Réseau des Familles de Famille or the Family Farmers Network. And so we joined this network of of family farmers with spans across Quebec that's now 30 years old. It's one of the most successful models for a producer-focused movement, really, for for getting um vegetables to market in a sustainable way. And we joined largely because it's sort of we had sort of a shared um idea of what we wanted to be doing with our farm. We wanted to be reaching directly to clients. We didn't really want to be going through large grocery chains, that sort of thing. We wanted this a very personal approach to how we were gonna be selling our vegetables. And that's what the RFF sort of markets and it's what it what it's created and what it has sustained across Quebec now for three decades. And so I spoke to Fred Terriot, who's actually a board member with the RFF. He's also a farmer with the Coop Tonasalin Les Cedres. And we chatted a little bit about the early history of the network, its development. So uh here he is, and I'll let him explain that a little bit more.

SPEAKER_10 15:51

So the Réseau des Fermiers Farmers de Famille started um some 30 years ago, and it was uh a citizen project. Some women who had heard about uh things like that being done in Japan. The initial idea was in Japan, where a community kind of hired a farmer to start growing food for them because they wanted safe food, they want to have a direct link with their food. And then that inspiration from Japan got talked over in the US, and it's it Elizabeth Hunter and um Laura Varidel were part of the folks who were starting Ikitar at the time, and they were really interested in food issues and food sovereignty issues, and they they heard about this idea and thought, let's try to start a project like that in Quebec. So they started a first pilot project with um uh La Ferme Cadet Roussel, which was a farm where they did end dives, and they were run by uh a French couple, and we're struggling in in many in many ways. And when they heard about this idea of getting paid ahead of time to secure a diverse harvest for a group of people in a community downtown that wanted to get good food, um and they were a biodynamic farm, um, they were very excited and decided to you know launch into it and and try this concept. And the pilot project went really well the first year, and so quickly then the the project grew. And I think the second year or the the first official year of the network, um it was five farms that uh participated and then it became 12 and uh and it grew exponentially after that. We joined in 2005 at Onistar Farm because we started our farm. Um and we've seen the network grow a lot uh uh in those years. And post-pandemic, it's been uh it was very uh high times. Lots of new farms were created and people had no trouble selling their food because everybody was afraid and and wanted to get good local food. Um and so that was maybe the high to the the highest numbers we've had in the network were right after the pandemic. I think we were maybe 180 farms total in the network, including our uh our uh associate farms then. And then uh things slowed down since. Uh, I believe now we're about 130 farms in the network, um, which is still very significant. And we're one of the biggest networks, uh well, we are we are the biggest network uh uh of such in the in the world. And when we participate in uh some international meetings, uh, because there are meetings for for folks who coordinate CSA networks, um people's draws draw to see what we are able to do in the in the family farmer network.

SPEAKER_09 18:43

So that's interesting about the network. So what are the advantages for someone like you as an organic vegetable producer? What do they provide? How do they help support the the work that you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 18:54

One of the main things that that they do is they supply they supply support. Um because I mean for all farmers, uh farming is a little bit isolating. So there's a huge network of supportive farmers that you're able to access through the RFF. The other thing that it does is is it provides an incredible platform that we're able to use to reach people. So it's kind of like a built-in marketing system that we sort of subscribe to or buy into. The way it works is that every single one of the baskets or the vegetable baskets that people buy from us, a certain percentage of that goes directly to the RFF so that it becomes a sustainable organization. And then from there, they return that investment to the farmers um in different ways. But it's a very positive organization. And like I said, it it's been around for so many years now that it it runs very, very smoothly. You know, at the start of the season every year, we know that we can sort of look to the RFF and that that um there will be a lot of support there for us as far as just helping to find new subscribers for baskets, but also making sure that our older subscribers come back. And um yeah, it's it's it's a really good sustainable model as well. The other thing that's really interesting is that it really runs on this idea of community-supported agriculture. All of the farms in the RFF are certified organic. They have to be in order to join, but most of them are working with some sort of CSA model. So I'm gonna let Fred explain a little bit more about what CSA is and how it works on the farm.

SPEAKER_10 20:30

Um a lot of the CSA farms now work in a concept that's that's a bit more commercial and standard, where people uh sell uh a share of their harvest ahead of time, and folks uh pay ahead of time and accept that there's gonna be variations. Uh you don't exactly know how the weather's gonna be and what the insect pressures are, but you know that you're gonna get really fresh, a really good deal on really fresh food and then a strong connection with your family farmer. And so people buy into this, pay in advance, and the farmers sell the number of shares they need to sell, and then they go on with their uh with their season and start planning the products, and then they bring the products to the people um as throughout the whole season. In Quebec, our seasons tend to start at the end of May or some sometime in June and last until October, November. Some folks uh have CSAs that run through the whole year, but um generally it's uh it's a more seasonal thing. Or or the winter arrangement is different. People do deliveries every second week or once a month. Everybody's got their own kind of model. So every farm is different and has their own kind of take on CSA. But the concept is that the the share, the harvest is sold ahead of time, paid ahead of time, which gives the the funds to the farmers to buy all the inputs, start their seasons, start to pay their employees, and then the harvest is delivered fresh, uh high quality, organic to To the customer base, and it's a partnership that really benefits both sides.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

And I think the important thing to note here too is that what does unite all of these farms, they might have a different model. Some people, you know, are doing fixed baskets, other people have sort of a market strategy where people can come and take what they want. But every farm associated with the network is an organically certified organic.

SPEAKER_10 22:27

Yes, that's very important for us. We want to be able to protect the consumer, and certification is the only way to really do that. Anybody can claim that they're ecological, um, but organic is a protected term. And so in order to market our organic basket, we need everybody in the network to be certified. And uh when a small a young farm or a new farm is in in process of being certified, we'll uh we'll accept them and they can also be on our map. There's a kind of a special section um for that. But um yeah, uh sort organic certification is uh the best way to uh to really distinguish who's who's really working organically and uh and then and so and and to really clarify our communication. That's why uh we choose organic certification in our in our network.

Sarah speaks with Jamie and Nora Quinn

SPEAKER_09 23:21

So Sarah, speaking of CSA, we have one of the first organic CSA farms in the province located in our area.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Yeah, so Jamie and Nora Quinn of the Ferme La Terre Bleue, which is in Elgin, which is just down the road from us, and it's actually where we we rent some land. They are brilliant pioneers um really in the development of organic vegetable production in Quebec and the CSA movement. We have a little bit of something in common too, uh, in the sense that they they came to farming uh from different backgrounds, kind of in a very idealistic way as well, very similar to the way we did. And uh so I'm gonna let Jamie explain a little bit of their history, how they how they landed in Elgin and and where they went from there.

SPEAKER_12 24:19

We came from downtown Toronto with uh with two children uh in 1984. We moved to a little farm on Rajcat, 50 acres on very wet, rocky land, and we started farming. Um, idealistically, much kind of like your story. We just didn't we didn't know much about farming. We were drawn to it for lots of different reasons, drawn to the area because land was reasonably priced, which it wasn't in Ontario then, and uh Nora's family was here. We wanted to be close to our family, so we had uh lots of good reasons to come here. And three years after uh we moved to Orm Sound, we decided that the road was too busy and the land was pretty challenging. So we exchanged wet, sandy, rocky land for wet clay land. So we moved to we got lucky to find this property in Ellegan, and through word of mouth, we uh managed to buy. It was just vacant land at the time. There was no house here, no electricity, no well. But uh we were young and we were enthusiastic, and Ellegan seemed like a great place. So we uh jumped ship, we moved in 1987 over over here. But we uh in terms of our farming career, we were market gardening right from the beginning, and uh so then we just transferred, we worked very hard on draining this land and bringing it into production and went from 1985, 1984 to 1994 at Atwater Market, and that's where we cut our teeth, that's where we learned to do what we were doing. Went to conferences, read lots of books, and uh by the end of the 10 years it was quite a frenzy at Atwater Market. We had a successful little business. And and way too successful, we couldn't handle the volume, and we asked our members, we'd heard about CSA, which is uh so community-supported agriculture. The the word was around, and we thought we would be a a great little thing for our farm because we we had a lot of loyal customers at that point at Atwater Market. We just asked them, we just did a little survey, would you rather rather than compete for vegetables in this big market when we we didn't really have enough to go around, would you like to set try something like this? And they almost everybody said yes. So we found a little location in NDG and started one of the early CSAs in Quebec. And it was uh successful right away. We were always had a waiting list. I compare it to like a small restaurant where you have 30 or 40 tables or whatever number of tables you have. And once the word gets out, you just always full. And so that's what we were. When the word was out that we had nice festivals and then we were reasonably priced and we were enthusiastic and all the good stuff that you need to be. And uh so we we had a uh we were busy, we were we were oversubscribed right from the beginning and always have we and once the word was out, our entire career we were oversubscribed. So we did that for um the rest of our farming career.

SPEAKER_13 27:01

Yeah, I guess um Jamie, uh in the early days I didn't go to the drop off except maybe once or twice the summer because we had small kids at home. But Jamie was always there. People really like meeting the farmer. Um, and it also, you know, as the kids got older, I was able to go more until I was going every drop-off. And it was a lively spot. People were talking about ways they used the vegetables. Um, people really liked talking to us about what was going on in the farm. And uh it was yeah, it was very rewarding for us to have that kind of contact. And some people were with us for years. We watched their kids grow up, which was really that was wonderful too. And sometimes their kids would then become members. People would drop in off the street just to see what was going on because it looked pretty fun. So that was yeah, I think that was one of the things that helped us keep at what was pretty hard work.

SPEAKER_12 27:55

Yeah, I think of that support side, community supported uh we often talk about the farmer and and the city. We this the split. Uh it's just amazing how these people came out to our farms and helped us. There was such con such um I mean we had so much in common with them. They were whether they were teachers or we had doctors, we had lawyers, we had uh people on welfare, we had all kinds of people in our members. And uh it just uh it just such a it was a little community. Well our farm was the center of uh an aspect of our community. It wasn't a complete community, but it it it was a kind of a focal point.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

So Jamie and Nora were known to pull up to Atwater Market with a station wagon full of veggies and just kind of pop the trunk. They laugh about their first stalls at the Atwater Market where people would literally sidestep around these mountains of bok choys and kale and the things that they were actually able to grow easily in Elgin. One of their first clients was actually um evidently somebody who really loved Bokchoy, also became their first CSA member, and she stayed with them until they retired just a few years ago. And they've got uh lots of incredible stories about their CSA members. They they really build a community. They still talk so fondly about them. They were telling me that during the ice storm in '98, when uh the the Chateau Valley was particularly hard hit, two of their members invited them to stay in Montreal with them just because electricity was out for so long. Another time for their wedding anniversary, their members chipped in and sent them on a two-week vacation to Paris, which, you know, our members have not um offered to do that for us yet. But um it's really it's just amazing to see the same people every week. They talked about this as well, just how affirming it is. It really helps you to go back, do the hard work that's involved in farming. You know, we're only 12 years in, but we have already watched, you know, some of the families at RCSA grow with ours, and we really take a lot of love back from our drop spots.

SPEAKER_09 29:46

Yes, I can um you your mention of the ice storm going back to 1998 uh in our in in our area, particularly along the US border uh with New York, um, some of those communities were out for over a month, so it must have been it must have been a real challenge. So there the name La Terre Bleue, it's a very interesting name for a farm. So what's the story there?

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Yeah, so much like us when Jamie and Nora started to to to first dig into their land, they discovered a field full of of literal blue clay. And as anybody in agriculture will tell you, blue clay is not where you want to start your farm. So they had to do an incredible amount of work just to um, you know, bring their their land up to what it is now. But uh as somebody who gets to farm in their soil, what they've done is incredible. They have just a luscious field that we get the honor of of working in. One of the interesting things is that Jamie became known for some of his techniques for working in clay um because it is so difficult and it's known around the world for being difficult. So I'll let him explain a little bit of of some some of the ways that he he found to work around clay. Here's Jamie again.

SPEAKER_12 30:57

I read a book on managing clay and uh it was written by an agricultural extension kind of service in England. Uh call uh university could have applied lots farming uh agronomy. And anyways, it was exactly that how to manage British clay, English clay. And and uh and that's where the idea of permanent wheelings came from. And I was kind of a pioneer in applying it that I that I know of. That's why often we're cited in books, it's because of our permanent wheelings. So that means the tractor always goes to the same place in your field year after year after year, and it takes a little bit of fooling around to have any idea where those wheelings are and to get all your equipment at the same width so that you can manage so that you don't it wasn't given that we were working with beds, it w was easier than it would be for a field crop to do that. Um so by using those permanent wheelings and using lots and lots of compost. Uh local some of the local dairy farms are very generous with with manure, and we composted the manure and put on tons and tons of manure. The the f the f the garden just became very uh easy to work, very uh uh a soil transformed in in texture. And I still know where the wheelings are in most of the garden. Uh they they're kind of uh uh identifiable in it, but I I'm not working the fields anymore, so it doesn't really matter. But that that was an integral part of working the clay was staying off the soil when it's wet, not driving on it and stuff like that. Uh I mean Denis La France and different people like that took a real interest in the fact that we were setting up our system where our cultivator, our planter, our cedar, or whatever we were using always always uh stayed on the same whalings. And land that's not considered Yeah, the land and the older area to go in and out of clay land when it's wet is not to make a m and not make a mess of it, is to stay off the garden. It's not the easy way to to get land that's not appropriate for I mean, land that is appropriate, like silty, sandy loam or black muck, it sure uh makes life a lot easier if you're gonna do market gardening on it. I d I I don't recommend to going and finding a piece of clay. But it is it is kind of gratifying that you can do anything uh if you try hard enough at it. We did it because this land was beautiful and the community won we wanted to be in and uh and it wasn't expensive, and that was important because we didn't have any money, so put it all together and we ended up on blue clay and elegant Yeah, that's a challenge that young farmers face now, as you know.

SPEAKER_13 33:06

It's the price of land, it's it makes it very difficult to get into the sort of thing that we're doing. Or if any farming, I guess we were lucky that way.

SPEAKER_12 33:15

And and watching the unfolding of farming is since we've been here, it's just the agriculture has gotten more concentrated. And that's kind of concerning to watch the scale at which it's happened you know, that it's unfolded over the last decades. And and and with uh in and of itself it it could be a neutral thing, but it it just tends to include you know the destruction of habitat, the deforestation and taking down of windrows and hedgerows and all all habitat, and it's just it's it's like we're living in a it's like we're living like it makes no difference. Uh and and that's it's it's disconcerting to watch that.

SPEAKER_13 33:46

Yeah, I don't know. I was just gonna say that having worked pretty close to uh nature around us for so many years, we become very aware of birds and insects and we can see the effect. You know, we we notice the decline of for instance butterflies and it's just and and that was one of the things that I liked about the work that we did was being out where you can, you know, you're aware of all uh not just the bird life but the insects around you, which are fascinating. And it we're not taking care of those things the way that we should. And I it's necessary that we take care of them.

SPEAKER_09 34:21

So after retiring, do they see a hopeful future for small scale organic farming and agriculture in general? And I just note to to add on there that recent statistics show that the number of while the number of farms total continues to decline, um, there's actually an increase in uh small farms, which I imagine many of them um are starting out as organic. So it's it seems to be encouraging. What do they see for the future?

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Aaron Powell Well certainly there's a big movement to to to start out uh smaller organic farms, and it's much easier to start a small organic farm because you don't actually need that much land. Um, you know, we started out as a a micro farm on you know about an acre of land. And um there's been a lot of research, a lot of books written, those sorts of things from, you know, uh Quebec farmers actually largely on you know earning a fairly decent salary from mar you know, gardening intensively on small plots of land. So it's an affordable way to get into farming. I I say affordable with, you know, very heavy, heavy um hesitation. But it it certainly it is a way of getting into farming that's a lot more accessible to young people, especially when they're coming out of school, those sorts of things, because you don't have to make those major investments and huge amounts of land or quota or anything else that you're doing on some of the other kinds of farms. They are very hopeful. They see a lot of what's happening in our area. They they actually see a lot of what the farmers, conventional farmers are doing as very hopeful. So I'll let them explain a little bit about what they see for the future of farming.

SPEAKER_12 35:55

Um some of the places I see you know hopeful changes, and it's not I'm I I I I think it's great that there's so many young farmers out there and they they always tickle me, and I get great energy from watching them. So sometimes I feel tired when I watch them. But but I I I think it's great. Some of the bigger movements that I'm seeing that, and sometimes it isn't even organic. Like probably 10 years ago I started seeing the local uh dairy farmers using pretty intensive um cropping systems where they're putting um, I guess it's a fall rye on after they harvest uh to take the f the c the fields through the winter so that you don't have erosion and uh and also giving up the plow for shallow cultivation um and so you don't uh put nearly as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. These kinds of uh massive movements of of technique of agriculture, and they're sometimes they're ahead of organic farmers and how they're implementing it, how how efficiently they're implementing these these techniques. And these ideas are, you know, coming through research and and uh you know applied best practices. And uh obviously we need agriculture, we can't live without it, but uh on the other hand it needs to be done with best possible practices. And and uh some of the bigger bigger movements coming out of MAPAC, getting away from uh herbicides, I find those all encouraging and uh when I see them in action. Sometimes when you see them in action they're on very large scales, or thousands of acres are being suddenly they're not plowing there and suddenly they're using cover crops and that that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_13 37:22

Yeah, the change comes slowly, it seems, but I think there's hope that things are changing, will change. Sometimes you can feel like you're hitting your head against a brick wall, but I I think there really is that there's there are good things that are happening and will happen and and it does take a kind of commitment. I think you have to do it. You don't it it's better if you don't get into it for the money, because that's gonna be the hard part, but if you really can see that it's important.

SPEAKER_12 37:48

Yeah, we we uh friends we didn't I didn't know I was going to be a farmer when I was growing up. I didn't it's the last thing I probably thought of. But once I got into it, I just I love I'm I felt lucky to be doing it. I felt sometimes it was hard, but most of the time it was uh very meaningful. It's been a really uh really great choice of uh uh uh way to live.

Sarah speaks with Jess Elwell

SPEAKER_09 38:11

So yeah, we've talked about field crops, we've talked about organic vegetables, we've talked about community supported agriculture, CSA as we refer to it. But this nothing is ever static, so things are changing. And after let's just round the number off at fifty years, what are some of the evolutions, what are some of the changes that are going on um with regards to um organic production?

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Well, on the production sign, there's a lot that's changing, um, but it's still, you know, it's still pretty basic as far as organics are concerned, and it's the certification practice and the certification um guidelines that kind of maintain it that way. You know, farmers are doing what they can. Certainly uh, you know, they're incorporating new and different kinds of mechanics onto the farm. You know, we spoke in the last podcast with Reed Alloway, who was bringing and electrifying as much as he possibly can on his farm, uh, which is the same farm that Fred Sahiel works on, who we spoke with earlier in this podcast. So there are a lot of changes, a lot of things that are developing. But again, the certification practice ensures that the rules are followed. And they're quite straightforward. There's still a lot of misconceptions, but most of those misconceptions come from the fact that people continuously think of organic as meaning that we're not using pesticides, we're not using fertilizers, that this is sort of an all-natural kind of farming, which it is, but we need to be able to use the same practices in order to actually produce crops. So I spoke with Jess Elwell from the Co-op de Jardin Resistance in Ormstone about being certified and some of these misconceptions. We tackled pesticides first. So she is explaining why pesticides are important.

SPEAKER_02 40:00

We do use pesticides in organic farming. I think it would be quite impossible to not use pesticides. I mean, we definitely try, like bug-wise, we definitely try to put physical barriers in between the bugs and our plants. Like we put uh like netting on top of the some uh some vegetables. But um, you know, it gets to a point where sometimes you have to spray for things because otherwise you have no crop. And like all the pesticides we use, like the advantage of them is that they degrade very fast into something not lethal. Like usually I think it's less than 12 hours usually. So um a pesticide that we use quite often is Bacillus theragensis. It is basically a little bacteria, and when caterpillars eat it, their guts like explode, which is uh a way to get rid of cabbage moth. Because if you have cabbage moths and people have this, you know, they buy this cabbage and but it's all eaten up, or like there's a you know a giant caterpillar in the middle. So it's better. But within like 12 hours, six hours, it like it stays on the plant, the caterpillars have a chance to eat it, but then you know, with a bit of sunlight and rain, then it washes off the plants and it's completely harmless in the environment. So it's not like killing, you know, like monarch butterfly caterpillars and things like that. And obviously, we we also try to respect the same restraints that big farms have where we try not to spray where it's super windy outside or when they're gonna have a huge rain because we don't want it like, you know, washing uh into wherever right away. We also use something that's very exciting that we've been using the last five, six years are predatory insects. So we use one kind of insect can to control another kind of insect. We use them mostly in the greenhouses because it's a closed system. So, like, for instance, we have if we have an aphid problem in one of the greenhouses, we introduce this like cute little parasitic wasp that like lays its eggs in the uh aphids, and then the aphids become mummified, and then more wasps are born from the aphid. It's like some seriously alien stuff, but it works great, actually. And they're not wasps that sting or anything. So uh and they're native to here. Also really cool.

SPEAKER_09 42:03

Aaron Ross Powell So uh aside from use and practices, there's also issues around labeling and misinformation about, as you earlier said, what is organic and what does it mean, um, and who's allowed to use that labeling?

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Aaron Ross Powell There definitely is, and a lot of it sort of comes from farms that are uh sort of misappropriating the term organic. Uh you hear a lot about organically grown vegetables, for example, which doesn't actually mean very much because it's not certified. There's also things like naturally grown, sustainably grown. You know, we could rattle off a whole list of these sort of labels. But as Jess explains, it it's actually very frustrating for a lot of the farmers who are working and who are paying, in fact, to be certified as organic farmers. So I asked her how she felt about it. And her uh her answer is was was a little emotional.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

So here we go. It makes uh yeah, it kind of boils my beans, you know. It makes me pretty upset because it's that's marketing. It's like a misleading label because there's no certification for organically for uh ecologically or naturally or sustainably grown. Like it's a marketing tool, it's a greenwashing tool. And maybe that farm is ecological, but like what does that even mean? Like, what's their definition of ecological, right? So pretty vague. Whereas if you have the echo sire or like uh the what's the other one, if you have a certification, it's like guaranteed by a third party that it is indeed organic. It's not it's not a form of greenwashing. It's like we're just putting our cards on the table, you know, and being like, here, we're organic, and uh that's it, you know. Yeah, no, it really uh boils my blood.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

And there are a lot of farms now that argue as well that it's just too expensive and that that's you know, that's sort of where they draw the line then is that they're doing everything that organic farmers are doing. It's just that they're not paying for certification.

SPEAKER_02 43:55

Mm-hmm. And like I'm sure some of them are, you know. It's like It also depends on the scale too. Like if there's like uh you know, if there's a guy farming an acre, you know, selling greens to a restaurant, you know, you can go and look around and talk to him or whatever, or the restaurant owner can. But if it's like if they're doing like us, we do baskets for four hundred people a week in the summer. And so obviously they're not all gonna come and look at our stuff. So I think it depends on the scale too. But uh and like I said, in an ideal world, it wouldn't be us paying for our certification. Like it's it's ridiculous that we have to pay to be organic.

SPEAKER_09 44:35

So it does it is complicated. There's conventional, there's uh low input, there's integrated pest management, there's regenerative agriculture, there's organic agriculture, there's biodynamics. There are um there's a lot of classifications. So how do people navigate these labels?

SPEAKER_01 44:53

It's complicated, and I guess it depends on what a lot of people are looking for. You know, uh there's also, you know, newer sort of labeling that talks about just local um and the importance of local local goods versus organic goods versus um, you know, biodynamic products, which are really interesting. We've used some some some principles of biodynamics in our farming as well, which sort of guides you as far as when to plant certain things based on phases. It's very interesting. Uh we use a calendar. And and you know, if you stick to it, sometimes you get results, sometimes you don't. But a lot of people swear by those sorts of practices. There's no certification, however, for biodynamics. So really what it comes down to is knowing where your food is coming from and whenever possible, knowing your farmer and buying your food sort of in uh its its most basic state. You know, Jess explains that having a closer connection to your farmer can also mean some pretty big savings down the line over grocery store uh prices. And it actually leads more often than not to less food waste. So I'll let her explain how that is. Here's Jess.

SPEAKER_02 46:01

And it's funny because when the baskets started, they were seen kind of as this like this luxury thing. It was like only it was only for the bourgeois and like the you know, the middle class, uh white people, you know. But it's not it's not the case anymore, especially since COVID, we've seen inflation like explode and like our prices are actually really, really reasonable now, like even cheaper than the grocery store a bunch of the time. And also you can verify that is it's actually from our farm. It's not like from the other side of the world where people are paid poorly or not at all to, you know, harvest tomatoes or whatever. And so, um, yeah, having that connection with your farmer is important, and I don't and I don't it's not an exclusive club, it's not bourgeois, it's like it's a good way to get your food and an amazing way to support your farmers. Like just the fact that we as farmers can start a season with everything already sold, like, is huge. You know, we're all being like we're farmers, we're like playing things and weeding things and doing plumbing and doing electricity, and we're we're we're trying to be on Facebook and Instagram all the time. It's like we wear so many different hats. Whereas like having things sold ahead of time is is such a huge relief, and it just like we can pay our employees, we can like it's it's amazing. And uh when you get a basket, there's there's no waste. Like we we want to sell this many baskets, we plan for that many baskets, and we plant for that many baskets, we harvest for that many baskets, you know? And like whatever whatever little bit of leftover we have, we give to our employees, obviously, or we give to the pigs, or we give to the chickens, or we give to the La Bouffa de Channel in Huntington, you know, and so I think that is a really important uh part of baskets that people maybe don't think about as much.

SPEAKER_09 47:55

So a lot of what we've talked about uh particularly um in the last uh uh couple of interviews that we've had in this episode um are about engaging directly with consumers. So you're selling from farmers markets, you're selling through community supported agriculture and other local means, which means that you A, you have a a good level of communication, you have a connection. Um, because people do put a lot of trust in their farmers and the way that they produce and market food.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Um and and that trust is is very important. Uh it's very important to the farmers, it's very important to the the people who are buying, uh, for example, who are buying our vegetable baskets, because they they really do sign up at the beginning of the year, sometimes, you know, as early as November or December the year before. And that's actually when we set our prices for the coming year. So when Jess was mentioning that, you know, you're the the inflation uh can change the prices and they can explode in grocery stores. More often than not, uh organic vegetable producers won't change their prices, especially if they have people who have signed up for their vegetable baskets. That's one of the perks, is that you know exactly how much your vegetables are going to cost for the entire season. Um and while you are investing in those a little bit ahead of time, that investment allows the farmers to know exactly how much they need to plant, exactly how much they need to harvest each week. And so that leads to less food waste, as Jess was saying. But more importantly, it also means that you're investing in your own food. You're investing in knowing where it's coming from, and you're making sure that it will be available as well. Um, we saw a huge jump, you know, Fred mentioned this, we saw a huge jump during COVID because all of a sudden there were concerns about whether or not people would be able to um, you know, to source the kinds of vegetables that they wanted in stores because we, you know, during COVID, you know, airlines were down, those sorts of things, transport was down, we weren't getting things into the grocery stores. And so people turned to local farmers, um, and the market really exploded for us. And it was wonderful. Um, once COVID sort of you know died down, that interest sort of died down as well. But there's a consistent market in Quebec, especially for people who are very interested in making sure that they know exactly where their food is coming from and that they can invest in it in a way that is actually, you know, more sustainable.

SPEAKER_09 50:21

Great. So thank you, Sarah, for guiding us through various elements of organic production, uh the economics and the marketing.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

Yeah, but well, they are important. The consumers, they're the eaters.

Callan speaks with consumers

SPEAKER_09 50:33

Switching from producers to consumers, our reporter Callan Forrester took some time to speak with shoppers on their weekly grocery run at two different grocery stores, each with a different price point. They were asked how organic products came into consideration when making their shopping lists. Over to Callan now to hear all about what consumers have to say.

SPEAKER_04 51:04

The number one thing that I noticed when speaking with these shoppers about their weekly grocery shop was that whether or not they bought organic was heavily dependent on the price. Price seemed to be the number one thing that deterred people from buying organic because they perceived it as more expensive. Here's what a few of them had to say about why price is a factor to them. So I was wondering when you do your grocery shopping weekly, does organic fruits and vegetables come into play or organic products in general? Sometimes, yeah. Yeah, and what is the biggest factor for your when you're deciding?

SPEAKER_12 51:31

Have quality. Quality?

SPEAKER_04 51:33

Yeah, if the uh regular stuff is not available, then we'll look at the uh organic. Well, and is price a factor for you too? No. No, okay, perfect. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Have a good one here.

SPEAKER_07 51:42

Honestly, right now I'm more like a student, so my main focus is usually price. So I used to buy organic, but then I start having support for my parents, so I only work for myself now. So now I'm just switching to the cheapest version that I'm sure. But as soon as I get more established, I'm pretty confident I'm going to buy to organic as well.

SPEAKER_04 52:04

And are you looking also at what's local versus not local, or is that less of a factor?

SPEAKER_07 52:08

No. I do actually don't pay attention to that side.

SPEAKER_05 52:12

From time to time, it used to be a major factor. But um with uh food prices the way they are now, um, I have to really um look at cost versus or what is more healthy and nutritious. But um before it was a priority, and no cost is a priority.

SPEAKER_04 52:33

Something that I found interesting was that at higher-end grocery stores, people said that they are expecting to pay more for organic food and are more willing to pay for organic food. And to them, it's not the fact that it's organic, it's more the quality that week and what looks best. That's what they're gravitating towards. I was just wondering when you do your weekly shop, how often does organic versus non-organic come into play when you're making your decisions?

SPEAKER_08 52:55

Not really important, but I don't even know the difference. You don't even know the difference. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 53:03

Yeah, and does price come into play for you sometimes?

SPEAKER_08 53:05

Yes, if it's organic, I will pick.

SPEAKER_03 53:08

Yes, I would say it is one of a myriad of factors um which I would like to focus on more.

SPEAKER_04 53:16

Now the point to me that was the most interesting was the idea of organic versus local. And when weighing the options between buying something local and organic, what's the best choice? And I'll put it over to our last clip now, uh, and she can explain a little bit how she feels about that.

SPEAKER_03 53:29

Yes, I would say it is one of a myriad of factors, um, which I would like to focus on more if I could if I could. And what's the biggest factor that uh comes into play? Is it like quality or is it price or something else? Um it's price, but also like uh I feel like the grocery store is fraught with decisions. So it's like packaging. Totally. And then uh also like seasonality, um, so all of those things. So I try to like have a little matrix of decision making as I go through things. So if it's like reasonably priced and it's like still in season, then I'm like, I'd rather buy something that's local and not organic than something that came from like California and is organic.

SPEAKER_04 54:13

Thank you for joining us for the latest episode of the Farm to Food Podcast, presented to you by Dejardet. We will have lots more about farming and all things agri-food in the coming weeks, and we'd like to thank our partners for helping bring this initiative to life. The Livestock Breeders Association in Ormstown and Quinn Farm in Notre Dame de Ipeho for promotional support.

SPEAKER_09 54:30

This program is also made possible by the volunteer directors on the board of the Shatterguy Valley Community Information Services, non-profit social enterprise with charitable status. So please support these efforts by making a tax-deductible donation at farmtofood.ca.

SPEAKER_04 54:45

The Farm to Food Podcast has been made possible by the hard work and creative effort of the following people at the Greener: Hugh Maynor, publisher, Jackie Work, Associate Publisher, Sarah Rennie, news editor, Chantal Hortop, managing editor, Erica Taylor, copy editor, Stacey Pennington, audio production, Diana Chicke, sales and marketing, José Manal, office manager, Gail Elliott, administration, and myself, Callan Forrester, reporter.

SPEAKER_09 55:11

And of course, Farmer Phil. He'll be back in two weeks as part of our bi-weekly farm to food podcast with lots of interesting stories on the journey of food from the land to the kitchen table. Thanks for listening, and we appreciate your support for local journalism at farmtofood.ca.