Jasmin Bautz

Jasmin Bautz has always known she wanted to do things her own way when it came to farming.

BY JESS CAMPBELL

For some young farmers in Canada, pursuing their passion in agriculture seems like an uphill battle, something that’s especially true for first generation farmers.

Jasmin Bautz is not one of those young farmers.

That’s not to say she doesn’t have her own battles to fight. As a young woman who has decided to farm on her own, Jasmin definitely has her work cut out for her. But being raised on a farm – even one that’s different from her own – certainly has its benefits when it comes to figuring things out.

“My farm is Country Log Ranch and I raise purebred Boer goats and commercial sheep,” says Jasmin. “When I was young, that’s what my mum did; she ran a meat goat operation. That’s what I was involved in as a kid and where I spent most of my time. That’s when I grew a passion for them.”

With help from her parents, Jasmin began purchasing animals back in 2012, proving it’s never too early to get started in farming. While helping her dad on the family’s commercial cow-calf and grain farm, Jasmin has also committed to growing her own farm business, with her family’s support. “Right now, I have 80 breeding does (goats) and about 50 breeding ewes (sheep). I lamb and kid them out at the same time. So, come kidding and lambing season, I’m in the barn all day and all night, looking after them. I do this by myself. I’m responsible for everything. That can be lonely and challenging. I can call on my parents or friends for support or assistance. But being able to raise them, and see animals grow and develop – that’s what I love. So in the future, I would probably see myself increasing my sheep herd and decreasing my goats, and just raising a smaller herd and making the quality better.”

Jasmin is constantly looking for ways to improve the way she farms, to make sure she’s raising her animals in the best way possible. “Goats and sheep don’t handle stress as well as cattle. So, I need to keep improving my system and keep finding new solutions to problems and what I’m doing wrong if an animal becomes ill. With the meat goats, it’s a smaller industry. There aren’t as many people involved in it so there isn’t as much support and not as much technology as other industries.”

You might think that farming on her own might be too much for Jasmin sometimes. In fact, farming by yourself can sometimes seem almost impossible, no matter who you are. But for Jasmin, being a young female farmer is the main thing that keeps driving her forward to pursue her goals. “What makes me really proud is that I’m a young woman, and one of the first women on my family farm to be farming and raising animals by myself, on my own. I’m proud that I’m carrying on the family farm like my parents before me. But I’m also changing the kind of farming (that’s being done). I’m also involved in the industry. I’m proud that I go to meetings and voice my opinions, even though, oftentimes, I’m the youngest person there. In the meat goat industry, it’s majority female dominated. That’s helpful because it’s a little less intimidating. It’s definitely easier to speak up.”

Being a young female farmer has never stood in Jasmin’s way, and likely never will, if she has anything to say about it. “I’ve been raising animals for awhile; I sometimes don’t feel that young! (laughs) As a young farmer, my opinion is just as valid as the next farmer.”

Rajasekhar Chokka

If you could choose to grow any kind of crop, what would it be? Follow-up question: where would you choose to set up your farm?

BY JESS CAMPBELL

Rajasekhar Chokka chose to begin growing two crops near his home in Nova Scotia. One is very traditional, the other is very much non-traditional, yet both crops are seasonal. “We grow haskap berries and we also sell frozen and fresh berries. Apart from this, we also do Christmas tree farming and sell Christmas trees.”

If you’ve never heard of a haskap berry, you’re not alone, as they’ve only become popular throughout the previous decade. But you also may know them by another name, as they seem to have several. Haskap berries can also be called the fly honeysuckle, blue honeysuckle, sweetberry honeysuckle, honeyberry and a few other names. They apparently have a very powerful taste, exuding a flavour somewhere between a raspberry and a blueberry (a traditional one, that is).

But Christmas trees are, well, just called Christmas trees.

Raja also sells haskap berry plants to other farmers on top of working off the farm full time. Having started his farm business just one and a half years ago, Raja says he’s already had to face a significant challenge and learn from it. “The main challenge for the berry side is the birds. We have to put netting on the trees. If you don’t put the netting on, the birds will eat all the berries within two or three days. They can eat up to a thousand pounds of berries! Last year, for selling plants, I didn’t put netting on and I didn’t get a single berry from those plants because everything got eaten by the birds.”

On the two acres he’s leasing right now, Raja hopes to be able to expand in the near future, especially given how many other haskap berry farmers are switching to other varieties. “Slowly, there are fewer and fewer haskap berry farmers. Sadly, there was a company that came to Nova Scotia a few years ago and said they’d buy all the haskap berries from the berry farmers and export them. But then that company went bankrupt.”

When situations like that happen, it certainly doesn’t help things like land prices which, according to Raja, are already inflated. But he remains optimistic about the future of his farm business, with no plans to change course. “The reason I started is because of my degrees in agriculture. I worked for almost seven years back in India for different agriculture companies. My family background is in agriculture, too. So, I wanted to be in the sector because I knew about the business a bit already. There is a lot of opportunity here, in Nova Scotia and in different parts of Canada. If I want to go elsewhere and grow Christmas trees and berries then I can do that. But I don’t want to get away from agriculture.”

Lexie Young

Lexie Young is an excellent example of what the future of Canadian cattle ranching looks like.

BY JESS CAMPBELL

There are a myriad of reasons why Lexie Young of Preeceville, Saskatchewan, has always known she wanted to become a rancher when she grew up. She loves cows and horses and crops and open spaces. She loves the outdoors and working with animals. And she has one particular woman in her life who has set an excellent example for what she can expect of her life on the range.

“My mom is the farmer,” says Lexie. “It was her dream to farm and she was determined this was what she wanted to do, so that’s what she’s done. She’s part time at the school in town and full time at the farm, so she works her butt off to have this farm!”

With 100 head of cattle and 2000 acres, there are, thankfully, a few more family members willing to help balance the workload around the farm. “My dad has a part time job and farms, basically doing whatever my mum tells him to do after work. (laughs) Both of my brothers have full time jobs so over the past few years, their roles on the farm have slowed down quite a bit. And my grandparents also help out, too.”

To make sure her dream of coming home to the ranch becomes a reality, Lexie decided to pursue post secondary education at the University of Saskatchewan’s Agronomy department. She’ll graduate in the spring of 2022, and then come home to the farm—but already has big plans in the works.

“I know where I want to take the farm and I’ve talked to my mum about it quite a bit,” Lexie says. “I think the biggest thing with our farm is that we’ve got a really good set up on our home quarter. We’ve redone our entire barn for calving season; it’s just for cows and for calving. There’s a lot of space to keep hay. But one of our biggest things right now is making sure we have enough pasture land for all of our cows. Our plan is to continue to get as much pasture land as we can to sustain more cows and then grow our herd.”

While the farm started with an open herd, Lexie says they’ve worked hard to build their breeding bloodlines and keep the herd closed, which is also something Lexie looks forward to continuing once she’s home full time. But to grow your herd, you need to make sure you have the land base and the hay to feed your animals, especially through the often harsh Saskatchewan winters. “In my opinion, hay land is very important because that’s what sustains your cows throughout the winter,” says Lexie. “Having good nutrients in your hay is really what your cows need, especially through the really cold months. My biggest expansion plan is getting more hay land and growing really high quality hay – the best for our cows to get them through the winter as healthy and happy as possible.”

It’s making sure the herd is healthy, happy and comfortable that drives Lexie to do her best, not only in her Agronomy studies but also in learning everything she can from her mom about managing the ranch. While Lexie certainly benefits from all that knowledge, the hard work is for something else entirely. “It’s all for the cows!” Lexie laughs. “Sometimes the cows are the biggest headache, but really, everything we do is for them. To be able to see your cows go through the auction and get the highest price, or to see that your cows are the best looking out of all the cows at auction, it’s just really rewarding as a cattle farmer. The lifestyle they give you is really amazing. Sometimes, the hours are long and the work is really hard, but at the end of the day, every time you go into the house, there’s a huge feeling of satisfaction.”

Lexie’s intrinsic love of farming is what she hopes other people can see, both in herself and in other Canadian cattle farmers and ranchers. “We care about those cows more than anything; everything we do is for them,” says Lexie. “We’re feeding the people we care about. We’re sustaining the world with top quality beef, and that’s why I continue to do this. Agriculture is just continually growing. Animal husbandry and animal welfare is just getting so much better. I really love being part of all those big changes. I’m really excited to see where the beef industry in Canada goes, because we have all these really awesome farmers and ranches who are always working together to improve the industry. I just love that feeling of accomplishment, knowing that we’re giving the cows the best life they can have while also providing the world with the best beef we possibly can. I just love farming! I think I was born to love it.”

Andrew and Jolene Karanfilis

When faced with the most challenging time in their lives, Andrew and Jolene Karanfilis dug deep – and came up with maple syrup.

BY JESS CAMPBELL

No one could argue that the pandemic hasn’t been hard. Everyone, on some level, has experienced loss, grief, fear and uncertainty, among other things. But as we turn the calendar on another year, there is great hope that maybe this will be the year the pandemic will finally end, and things will finally change for the better.

Andrew and Jolene Karanfilis know this tide of change; they also know fear and uncertainty well. When the pandemic hit, they were working as children’s entertainers in the Niagara region of Ontario. Now, over a year later, they’re beginning something entirely new and different, yet couldn’t be more excited about where their lives are going. “We had such a good thing going with the world,” says Jolene. “But then the pandemic hit, and a lot of people suffered consequences; we were on the bad end. Our business was decimated. Andrew was laid off from his part time job and I was pregnant and couldn’t work. So we really had to go back to the drawing board and redefine what we thought we wanted for ourselves. We dug deep into what we really wanted out of life. We combined our ideas and realized that our all-time goal, individually and together, was to own a farm of some sort.”

People come to farming in a myriad of ways, and Jolene and Andrew are no different. Neither of them were raised on a farm, but that didn’t stop them from pursuing their dream of owning one. “We owned a home and decided to sell it,” says Andrew. “We purchased a sugar bush, a two acre maple syrup farm here in Niagara. This is an origin story. We’re meeting what the market is demanding. There’s still an opportunity for us to do children’s entertainment but we’re integrating it with this sugar bush by getting involved with agri-tourism and education.”

February 2022 will hopefully be Andrew and Jolene’s first maple sap season. Although their sugar bush isn’t currently set up with the infrastructure to produce maple syrup, they have immersed themselves in the maple syrup industry in Ontario, meeting many existing maple syrup producers and even gaining some interest from producers in need of their sap. While Andrew and Jolene wanted to get involved in something “authentically Canadian,” they also wanted something that many other farmers want, too: to build a family legacy.

“We’re doing this for our son,” says Jolene. “This will be an opportunity for him. He has a very different upbringing than I did or than Andrew did. We’re creating a ball that we can pass to him, and he can improve the world as he pleases.”

Out of all the entrepreneurial ideas they could have chased down on behalf of their son, it just so happens that Andrew and Jolene have chosen an agri-tourism opportunity that works well with their existing skills. “I thought, maybe we could make this into something that we could not only pass down to our son but also bring our children’s entertainment business into,” Andrew says. “We want to tie the fantastical to the authenticity and the local feel of it, creating a little space to teach people where maple syrup comes from and how it’s made.”

While there are still uncertainties in their lives, Jolene and Andrew are determinedly looking forward to building their business over the next year, and beyond. “It’s very important to me to let people know that they can build something from nothing,” says Jolene. “With a little observation, you can make all the difference in your life.

My husband and I were put into a very stressful situation where we had to sell our home; it was a very scary time for us. But what gave us clarity were the moments we allowed ourselves to sit back and observe our life, and think about who we are as people and what we want to do with our life. In a way, we have the pandemic to thank for that. We were able to sit at home together and take that deep dive and make the necessary changes we needed to in order to fulfill our dreams.”

Janna Quesnel

Starting something from nothing isn’t for the faint of heart, but Janna Quesnel can handle it.

BY JESS CAMPBELL

If there’s one thing that is very clear about young farmers across Canada, it’s that everyone comes to farming in their own, unique way. For some, they are proud to be part of a multi-generational operation, working the land and caring for livestock alongside one, two or even three generations of family members. But for others, like Janna Quesnel and her husband, Jason, of Lumby, British Columbia, a big source of their pride comes from striking out on their own and starting something from nothing, perhaps with the goal of someday being a multi-generational farm.

“Having started our commercial cow-calf herd in 2011, we bought our farm in 2013,” says Janna. “The farm was completely run down. There was nothing usable, so we’ve been working at building it up since then. Now, we have 150 head of cattle and 425 acres. We also have four kids now, so it’s busy!”

As with any farm, there are a number of challenges that Janna and Jason need to manage, whether on a daily basis or to achieve their long-term vision for their operation. But with challenge comes opportunity. “I would definitely say that in BC, land costs are huge,” Janna says. “At the time we purchased our farm, the cost seemed crazy, but now it’s even more. So, we’re fortunate to have purchased it when we did. Grass is a big challenge, too. The cost of land rental is a lot. We’ve secured some Crown range, which is good, but it’s also not enough for what we need. So, we’ve built some relationships with other farmers and are working together, and we’ve got some nice rental land and have some great people we’re working with on that. But honestly, our biggest challenge has just been building it from nothing. Blood, sweat and tears really applies!”

It’s likely that most farmers would agree that the challenging days are the hardest to get through and can easily make you feel like you want to throw in the proverbial towel entirely. However, the drive to keep moving forward is often the same, no matter how a farmer may have gotten started. “We’re doing this for our family and for our kids,” Janna says. “Raising our kids here and having them be able to run outside is great. We have 425 acres, so they can run and be free. I love that I get to raise my kids on a farm. For the most part, they see the joyful side, not the stressful side. And they’re just little helpers; they love to learn. Even my three year old, shovelling out the stock trailer, he loves it! Most people would think that’s a terrible job, but he enjoys it.”

While farmers generally take pride in their work, Janna finds that seeing the farm grow into what it is today has been extra satisfying. “Seeing our progress and experiencing tangible results has been quite nice. We’re pretty proud of our animals, too. We take good care of them and do our best to provide a really good environment for them, with the best possible care and good herd health programs. Canadian agriculture has some pretty good standards, too, and that makes me proud. We have really high standards for ourselves and our product, and we’re proud that we’re doing the best we can, as are most Canadian farmers, I would imagine. I haven’t met too many Canadian farmers who don’t take pride in their product.”

In fact, that’s a message Janna believes to be a very important one for consumers to understand, that despite how a farmer got started with their farm, they take great pride in producing food for Canadians. “Anyone who owns livestock cares about their livestock. They care whether they’re healthy and taken care of. Farmers in general are passionate about their product, and their livelihood. Consumers can have faith that farmers are doing their best and providing you with the best possible product they can.”

Amanda Henderson

Amanda Henderson went from milking cows to raising bees, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

BY JESS CAMPBELL

Farming isn’t an easy endeavor to start, especially if you’re not from a farming family. Amanda Henderson, owner and operator of Henderson Apiaries in Brant County, Ontario, grew up on a dairy farm. For many dairy farm kids, the assumption is that they’ll one day take over the farm, carrying on the multi-generational legacy a farm can bring.

That wasn’t the case for Amanda, as her parents sold the cows and quota when she was in high school. It was while attending university that Amanda started keeping bees on her parents farm as a hobby. “It’s been 11 years now,” says Amanda. “I started with just a few hives, but grew it into a side business. I work full time for a commercial beekeeper that’s about half an hour from home. I’ve been there for seven and a half years now. We focus on breeding queens and selling bees to other beekeepers.”

While Amanda also raises queens, her focus at Henderson Apiaries is producing honey, beeswax candles and other products. Amanda is quick to say that beekeeping wasn’t really on her radar as something she wanted to do with her life, let alone raising the coveted queen. “If I’m being honest, I stumbled into queen rearing a little bit,” Amanda says. “I was at university and was really getting into beekeeping. We’d had our hives for three or four years by that point. I wanted a job in beekeeping but a lot of those jobs, especially entry level, are seasonal. I was hesitant to quit my year-round part-time job, but I started looking around for where I could get a job in beekeeping. Half an hour from home is a queen breeding operation. My boss had worked for the Ontario Beekeepers’ Association for years and eventually left that job and started her own queen rearing operation. She was about four years in and working on expanding when I was looking for a job. I ran into her at a beekeeping meeting and told her I was looking. And I’ve worked for her ever since.”

When asked what she loves about beekeeping and raising queens, it’s very clear Amanda loves pretty much everything about it, including working with larvae (yes, larvae). “I love the seasonality of it. The queen rearing season is relatively short; we usually start grafting larvae in late April and go until late July. When we’re raising queens, we’re selecting our stock for the genetic traits we want. Once we have our mother lines selected, we start grafting larvae out of those breeder hives and take them into a cell builder hive. We’ll raise the larvae into a queen cell, then 10 days later, that cell is ready to harvest. We can either sell the cell to another beekeeper or use it ourselves by letting it hatch out into a mating unit where that queen will mate with the drones, which are male bees. At that point, we can sell her as a mated queen or use her ourselves for expansion or replacing older stock.”

Amanda says she loves all the different aspects of beekeeping and queen rearing, such as paying close attention to the blooming schedule of flowers to understand what the bees are pollinating, when. But just like any other type of farming, there are always challenges as well as consumer misconceptions about beekeeping and apiaries. “It’s so tough. There’s a lot of fanfare around honey bees. People don’t realize there are, like, over 400 native species of bees here in Ontario. A lot of the bee populations that are under threat are actually some of the native bees. We’ve got the European honey bee. They’re living in a lot of the world and are pretty adaptable in terms of pests and diseases. But some of the bees that people aren’t reliant on for income get overlooked, and I think that gets mixed up in the media sometimes. Plus, there’s different management practices, there’s micro climates, there’s so many factors that make beekeeping difficult. I mean, they just go fly! We can’t tell them where to go! (laughs) They will go for three miles from wherever their hives are, and I can’t control what happens within a three mile radius of all my hives.”

Even with all of the challenges of beekeeping, Amanda is truly passionate about her work and her business, especially when she’s able to foster a connection between agriculture and the consumer. “To be able to meet my customers and say, ‘this is local, the bees made it.’ To provide that connection for people, I think they really value that.”

Stephanie Lipp

Stephanie Lipp grew up in one of the biggest cities in Canada. Now, she’s a mushroom farmer in one of the smallest.

BY JESS CAMPBELL

It’s not very often that you meet a young farmer who was raised in Mississauga, Ontario, the sixth largest city in Canada. Now living and farming gourmet mushrooms in Bonavista, Newfoundland, Stephanie Lipp is that person and, sometimes, even she still can’t believe it. “My previous life is pretty much opposite to agriculture,” Stephanie laughs. “I come from a background of graphic design and photography, and grew up in a different world in the city. I’m definitely more comfortable on the TTC subway than I am calling myself a farmer!”

But a farmer is exactly what she and her partner, Leo Gillis, are. Two years ago, Stephanie and Leo were living in the city and not enjoying their lives. “Leo is originally from the West Coast of Newfoundland but moved to Ontario when he was really young. Six months into our relationship, I visited Newfoundland for the first time and loved it, but never thought I’d live there. Leo’s mom had recently got a new apartment. The price she was paying was so unbelievable that, on a whim, I looked online for housing listings in Newfoundland. I saw how affordable the houses were; it was unbelievable! You could get a whole house for the same price of a condo parking space or a storage locker in Mississauga.”

The drastic difference in the cost of living was enough that Stephanie couldn’t quite let it go. “Totally joking, I was like, maybe we should just move to Newfoundland! And then I Googled moving to Newfoundland to see if there was anything online about people who had moved there. All these articles came up about Bonavista and all the entrepreneurs who were moving here. So, we kind of started to think that maybe we could actually do this. There was an established artisan community, it was by the ocean, and we could afford a house. So what started as a joke in September turned into our house closing in January. And then we moved at the end of April.”

Stephanie and Leo knew they couldn’t move to Bonavista and live the same kind of life they’d been living in the city. They both had talent and a taste for adventure, so started thinking about what kind of work they would love to do. Having already been frequenters of their local farmer’s market in the city, they came across someone growing and selling gourmet mushrooms. And the rest is history. Well, sort of.

“I actually hated mushrooms at the time!” Stephanie admits. “I just never ate them, and cringed if I had to. But when I started eating these gourmet varieties, I was like, okay, I understand now why people love these. They were so delicious, had all different flavours and textures, and were just beautiful to look at. We started researching how to grow mushrooms, and Leo just dove into it. Suddenly, our whole life was mushrooms and mushroom farming and mycology. By the time we got to Bonavista, we’d practiced with some basic lab skills and had our first fruiting bags. It just really quickly became our passion.”

Right now, Stephanie and Leo have everything they need set up in their home in Bonavista. But if things continue to go as planned, it won’t be like that for very long. “We’re doing plans to create an actual farm premises; we have to have a certified farm to be able to sell to grocery stores and restaurants. We also want to have a space for education and engagement for not only tourists but also the local community. Cooking classes, healthy eating and also fun things, like a space for local artisans to have workshops and supper clubs. We really want it to be centered around local food and community.”

Their desire to support the community that has supported them comes from wanting to help improve food security in the province as a whole. “There was a report released a couple of years ago that said there’s only about 72 hours worth of food on the island at any given time. If flights can’t come in or the ferry doesn’t run, that could put people in very precarious situations, especially people who have socioeconomic factors related to their access to food. So, even though we’re on a small scale, starting this type of agriculture that’s year-round, requires a small footprint, has less water consumption and then produces a biodegradable byproduct is helping to alleviate food security issues.”

Stephanie says she and Leo love their new life as Newfoundland mushroom farmers, but that they are even more grateful for the Canadian agriculture industry and other young farmers they’ve met. “We kind of feel like imposters because we’ve met so many young farmers who work really, really hard—I mean, we work hard too! But it’s not quite the same as getting up at 5 AM to be out in the barn or the field, and owning land. It’s just really increased our appreciation and admiration for the people who are feeding us. We are proud to call ourselves farmers, but it’s still a little bit surreal.”

Thomas Lavoie-Vigeant

Thomas Lavoie-Vigeant didn’t grow up on a farm, but his passion is to teach you about them.

It’s no secret that consumers are as far removed from the farm as they’ve ever been. Gone are the days when people shopped exclusively from stores and markets local to them, with those stores and markets only selling local products to the community. In a way, it’s a bygone era—unless you’re Thomas Lavoie-Vigeant.

Thomas is in no way a farm kid. He was not raised on a farm, nor are any of his family members farmers. Thomas works full time as a dairy equipment salesperson, at a job and a company he loves that has steeped him in the ways of agriculture. So in 2019, Thomas and his wife decided they wanted to step into farming themselves. “We bought a sugar bush in 2019. It was just maple syrup; we bought that land from Roger Petit. We’re not family, but we kept the last name for the name of the farm, Sucrerie Petit.”

Thomas has about four thousand taps that he manages during peak maple syrup season on his farm just outside of Montreal, making all of the classic maple syrup products one might expect (we’re talking maple butter, candy, and caramels). But in the two years since purchasing the sugar bush, Thomas has already expanded and diversified his farm business. “Land is kind of expensive so we had to add on to our production to maximize the land,” Thomas says. “In 2020, we started to grow pasture pigs; we started breeding Mangalica, a hairy pig, like a sheep. They take around 28 months to grow. It’s very, very slow, so we are just starting to harvest them now.” Thomas also has Berkshire pigs, as well as a herd of Belted Galloway cattle (“The Oreo cow,” he laughs) for beef.

Working full time off the farm means Thomas and his wife, Marjorie, farm in the evenings and on the weekends. Saturdays happen to be their busiest days, but also one of Thomas’ favourites of the week. “Every Saturday, we have people from the local community out to the farm. I give them a little tour and explain to them how we raise everything. It’s nice to show them.”

The opportunity to educate people about where their food comes from is one of the top reasons why Thomas decided to become a farmer in the first place. “I want to reconnect citizens with agriculture. I think agriculture should be open doors every weekend, with more accessibility. We have to eat three times a day, and that food has to come from somewhere. We need to educate citizens about farming. I always explain to my visitors that with a pig, you have just two ribs. So, if you have a party with 20 people, you need to kill 10 pigs to have ribs. You have to be responsible about what you eat from the pig. Buy the ribs, but also buy the shoulder or the less popular parts so it’s not wasted.”

While Thomas believes the best place to raise a family is on a farm (which he and Marjorie are now testing out with their son, Julian, born this past March), he also believes that farmers need not be in competition with each other when it comes to helping consumers learn about their food. “There’s nothing perfect in agriculture,” Thomas says. “I try to explain that to my customers. Everybody has their own way of doing things, and there’s always a reason for that. The way I do things isn’t better than a commercial farmer, and the way they do it isn’t better than me. There’s a place for everyone.”

In the future, Thomas has plans to grow his farm and, hopefully, process his own meat. “Right now, I have to drive the animals everywhere. It’s a lot for me and I think it’s stressful for the animals. So, that would be nice, to be able to process my pigs and cows here, and to have room to process animals from neighbouring farms, and work together to sell the meat.” If anything, this young farmer will continue looking forward to both serving his customers and helping them learn about agriculture. “We just started selling meat in December 2020, so we’re very young. But every Saturday, I’m very happy to meet my customers. Some customers don’t know how to cook the meat, so we’ll teach them how to do that, too! It’s a big role, but I enjoy it.”

Mattson Griffiths

Mattson Griffiths didn’t grow up on a farm, but he absolutely plans to grow old on one.

As someone raised outside of agriculture, it’s one thing to find yourself working on someone else’s farm. But it’s entirely another to decide to start your own farm business based on the work you’ve done and the lessons you’ve learned from growing food for someone else.

Mattson Griffiths and his wife and business partner, Maggie Winchester, have done exactly that. Neither of them come from a farming background; in fact, Mattson says you’d need to go “fairly far back in the genealogical tree” to find anyone in his family working as a farmer.

If you know anything about farming and agriculture, you know it’s not a job that’s considered easy. As someone who worked in the corporate 9-to-5 world, Mattson knew farming would be a drastically different life.

That, as it turns out, was entirely the point.

“I prefer to have a job that grinds me into the shape I want to be,” Mattson says. “There’s so much that farming provides in terms of health and lifestyle. There’s satisfaction from putting effort into a project and seeing that project materialize and yield food right before your eyes. Initially, I was interested in agriculture as a method of therapeutic benefit for others. But instead, I realized that there’s a lot of benefit to myself that I could also reap.”

And benefit he has. For the last year, Mattson and Maggie have worked as the co-general managers of Juniper Farm, an organic vegetable operation near Wakefield, QC, starting as field crew three years ago and working their way up. 2021 was their first season farming an eighth of an acre of cut flowers and garlic on their own (called Moonie and Merl, a clever take on their walkie-talkie nicknames instated during work at Juniper Farm), in part thanks to the generosity and support of their employers. “We’re exceptionally fortunate to have a great relationship with our employers. Juniper Farm has an on-site farm store that they sell their products through, and have their own online store and other methods of distribution. Our host farm has a lot of opportunities for market access that way. We’ve been very lucky to be able to sell to them directly.”

Even after graduating from McGill University’s Farm Management and Technology program, Mattson understands that being a first generation farmer doesn’t come without its challenges. But it seems he and Maggie have been able to take those in stride, and with an open mind, too. “Access to land is a universal challenge and one that I think will just become more of an issue going forward. We’re currently renting land. But to have something to call your own, that we have more control over and can invest in long-term, that is a bit of a trickier thing for us to foresee the trajectory of. Farming is already unpredictable. But I feel like when you’re trying to put all the pieces together, you just have to be ready for anything and be fairly flexible.”

Like all farmers, Mattson and Maggie don’t know what the future holds for their farm. Continuing to be part of a thriving agricultural community has them buoyed and able to keep moving forward, especially on tough days. However, Mattson attributes the hard work of becoming a farmer to his ability to stay open-minded, and to his ability to recognize that farming isn’t just about growing food for yourself and others. “I think it’s working in an industry that’s inherently hard and challenging day to day that makes me proud to be a farmer in Canada. It has really made us stronger individuals: our communication skills, our overall resilience, the lifestyle we live in terms of how healthy we are. Agriculture is a very challenging industry, but to only see the difficulty, I hope, wouldn’t overshadow the tremendous personal and professional benefits the work can provide. Farming is kind of hectic – which is possibly the biggest understatement of the year – but at the same time, I don’t know if I’d be growing as much as a person, if I were way more comfortable and not putting myself outside my comfort zone.”

It seems the risk Mattson and Maggie decided to take by becoming farmers themselves is paying off, both as a beautiful compliment to the work they’re already doing, but also as a way of life. Indeed, that seems to be the point.