Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Everywhere around the world, people’s Équiterre, which oversees one of the largest net-
eyes are being opened to the ravages of industrial works of organic farmers and citizens in support
agriculture: pesticides, GMOs, cancer, agribusi- of ecological farming, has brilliantly comple-
ness. Along with this growing awareness is an mented the notion of the family doctor with that
increasing consumer demand for healthy, local, of the “family farmer.” Alternative modes of food
organic food. Alternative modes of selling and distribution now represent a growing niche, and
purchasing food are also gaining ground, visible moving out to the country to make a living in ag-
not only in the mushrooming farmers’ markets riculture is now a viable option for young (and
but also through community-supported agricul- not-so-young) aspiring farmers.
ture, or community-shared agriculture (CSA) My wife and I began our farming career in
schemes. This system is a direct exchange be- a very small market garden, selling our veggies
tween producers and consumers. The consumer through a farmers’ market and a CSA project. We
buys a share in the farm’s production at the be- rented a small piece of land (1⁄5 of an acre) where
ginning of the season, thus becoming a partner in we set up a summer camp. It didn’t take much
the endeavor. In exchange, the farm commits to investment in the way of tools and equipment
providing quality produce, usually harvested the to get us up and running, and our expenses were
day before, or even the same day. In addition to low enough that we were able to cover our farm-
issues of quality, this model of food distribution ing costs, earn enough money to make it through
addresses people’s desire to have a relationship the winter, and even do some travelling. Back then
with the farmers who grow their food. we were content just to be gardening and to be
These ideas are making headway in Quebec: making ends meet.
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Because our micro-farm has garnered so stand when one stops to consider the obstacles
much media attention in recent years, farmers that beginning farmers must face when they are
of all stripes and many agronomists have been just getting started. For us, the decision to grow
coming to meet us and visit our gardens. These vegetables on a small plot of land, while minimiz-
people, most of them only familiar with modern ing start-up investments, simply had to do with
large-scale conventional farming, are curious our financial reality at the time. When we were
about our work because we challenge the belief in our early twenties, our financial resources were
that the small family farm cannot stay afloat in to- limited and we felt strongly about the importance
day’s economy. Despite our decade of experience of minimizing our debt load. Ten years later, our
in proving the viability of a micro-farm, most of strategy of starting a farm without a large capital
these visitors remain unconvinced. They find it expense, while still producing high yields of veg-
difficult to wrap their heads around the fact that etables for direct sales, has proved to be lucrative.
we have no plans to make major investments and Our market garden demonstrates that high profits
that we intend to stay small and continue working can be earned without high costs.
with hand tools. A bank loan officer who visited For beginning farmers, there are a number of
us adamantly declared as she left that we were not advantages to “starting small”—but there is also
real business people, and that our farm was not a much to be said for staying small in the years that
real farm! follow. That being said, whatever the size of the
Our farming choices may be easier to under- planned operation, it is important to understand
we’ve continued to add compost regularly while high yields per square foot) has two main advan-
limiting any turning of the soil to just the surface, tages. The first is that it greatly cuts down on the
thereby keeping the structure as intact as possible. amount of weeding required, and the second is
For deep soil cultivation, we use a broadfork (gre- that it renders many day-to-day gardening tasks
linette in French) which allows us to aerate the soil more efficient. These benefits will be explained in
without turning it. The purpose of this cultivation detail throughout this book.
is to create loose, fertile soil, which encourages In our gardens, it is the quality of the soil struc-
the crop roots to spread downward rather than ture, combined with the microbe- and nutrient-
sideways. This in turn makes it possible to plant rich compost that we use, which allows intensive
the crops quite close together without them run- spacing to work well. It took us a few years of trial
ning into each other at the root level. and error to determine the proper spacing for
The goal is to space the crops such that their each crop—so that they are planted as densely as
leaves touch each other when the plants reach possible without limiting their size at maturity —
three quarters of their full size. At maturity, the but it was a worthwhile effort. We also sought to
foliage will cover all of the growing area, effec- further maximize our growing space by planting
tively creating a living mulch. This strategy of as many succession crops as possible. This means
closely spacing the crops (in addition to allowing that we must determine the length of time each
C H A P T E R 2 : S U CC E E D I N G A S A S M A L L-S C A L E O R G A N I C V E G E TA B L E G R O W E R 7
crop spends in the garden and plan our seedings we developed a good regime for making our mar-
so that harvested crops are replaced by new ones ket garden highly productive in a cold Canadian
as soon as they are out of the garden. Using our climate while favoring an approach that sustains
crop plan, we succeed in producing multiple suc- soil quality.
cessive harvests each season in the same space.
Most of the thinking behind biologically in-
Minimizing Start-Up Costs
tensive methods is not so very different from the
principles of organic agriculture. In both cases, Starting a farm requires investing in tools and
the objective is to build rich, loose, fertile soil. equipment, but by starting small and growing
But biointensive practices stress the importance crops intensively, it is possible to do so without
of building soil in order to achieve this. Planting a large capital outlay. Here is a list of the invest-
closely spaced crops in permanent beds is what al- ments I feel are necessary to run an efficient vege-
lowed us to establish ourselves in farming without table operation on less than two acres (1 hectare).
mechanizing our operation. These are not new The approximate dollar amounts listed are in
ideas, and we do not pretend to have invented Canadian funds and are for new equipment which
them. If we can take credit for anything, it’s that should last many years.
C H A P T E R 2 : S U CC E E D I N G A S A S M A L L-S C A L E O R G A N I C V E G E TA B L E G R O W E R 9
C H A P T E R 2 : S U CC E E D I N G A S A S M A L L-S C A L E O R G A N I C V E G E TA B L E G R O W E R 11
if they hope to prosper over the long term. More- the preferred option since it guarantees sales and
over, the work we do as farmers addresses a need simplifies our production plan. In my opinion,
felt by a growing number of people who want to the many advantages of CSA make it a sales outlet
support and get to know local producers. One tailor-made for new market gardeners.
of the benefits of direct selling is that it provides Whatever model one chooses, the point of
confidence to consumers by ensuring safe, nutri- direct selling is to build a loyal base of customers
tious, and responsibly produced food, which is and develop an interdependent relationship with
not always readily available in today’s globalized them. When it comes to customer loyalty, the
food system. quality of the products is very important. One
That being said, one could ask which mode of should never neglect the importance of presenta-
direct selling is better than others. This is hard to tion (for instance, always washing the vegetables)
answer, since each model has its advantages and and the importance of identifying your produc-
disadvantages, and each farm has its own needs. In tion with a distinctive logo. Another key to suc-
our particular case, although we sell our produce cess with direct selling is to be welcoming and
at two farmers’ markets, CSA has always been open to sharing information with people who
C H A P T E R 2 : S U CC E E D I N G A S A S M A L L-S C A L E O R G A N I C V E G E TA B L E G R O W E R 13
We favor root vegetables that can be sold with their leaves, demonstrating that the crops are fresh.
We avoid storage vegetables (potatoes, parsnips, winter squash, rutabagas, etc.), which for the
most part take up space in the garden for a long time and cannot be marketed as fresh. We have de-
veloped expertise in two crops that we deem most profitable: mesclun and greenhouse tomatoes,
which we distribute through restaurants, a local grocer, as well as our direct selling channels.
We choose the tastiest cultivars (different varieties of the same vegetable), since we want to en-
courage our members and customers to discover new tastes.
We regularly try different or unusual cultivars in order to keep our members and customers inter-
ested.
We supplement our production with vegetables purchased from producers who specialize in crops
that we have chosen not to grow.
We force our early-season crops in order to be the first to offer them at market.
We change our prices as little as possible, and explain to our customers and members the negative
effects of “dumping” that drives grocery store prices down.
We have taken the time to design an eye-catching logo that clearly identifies our products. At the
local grocery store, customers swear by our products, which they recognize easily. They know that
they are supporting the farm down the road.
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