SPRING 2021 | VOLUME 13 ISSUE 01

IN CONVERSATION WITH BEEKEEPER

TRACEY SMITH... PAGE 4

PEAS ON EARTH: EXPERIENCE PASSED

DOWN THROUGH GENERATIONS... PAGE 9

ORGANIC AGRONOMY SHOPTALK... PAGE 10

CONNECTING WITH CONSUMERS AND

ADAPTING TO MARKETS IN 2021... PAGE 12

GOODBYE TO CANADA'S 'AVERAGE'

FARM... PAGE 16
 SPRING 2021
MISSION: To represent and support
Alberta's entire organic industry.
VISION: A strong, sustainable and
united organic community in
Alberta.
EDITOR/SUBMISSIONS
Cari Hartt
587-521-2400
cari.hartt@organicalberta.org
ADVERTISING
Cari Hartt
587-521-2400
cari.hartt@organicalberta.org
GRAPHIC DESIGNER 
Cari Hartt
587-521-2400
cari.hartt@organicalberta.org
BOARD MEMBERS
Representatives elected by region:
(N) North (S) South (C) Central
(M) Member at Large
President: Charles Newell (AB
Federal Level):
780-809-2247
newellsfarm@gmail.com
Vice Chair: Tracey Smith (M):
780-802-4073
northcookinglake@gmail.com
Treasurer: Becky Doherty (M):
587-673-1077
info@stonepostfarms.ca
Secretary: Andrew Mans (S):
403-360-5663
ahmans@gmail.com
James Thiessen (N):
603-480-1158
jkthie@telusplanet.net
Kirk Riste (S):
403-501-4692
kirkriste@hotmail.com
Frank Maddock (M):
780-727-2333
jaspersprings@live.com
Ed Szymanek (C):
403-350-2677
eszymanek1@gmail.com
Pierre Fillion (N):
780-925-2909
pjfillion@yahoo.com
Summer 2021 deadline is Friday,
June 4th. Please send comments,
suggestions, ads, and/or articles to
cari.hartt@organicalberta.org  Representative.
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PRESIDENT'S REPORT
By Charles Newell, President
The Board of Directors announces Marilynn
Boehm's departure as Executive Director of
Organic Alberta, effective April 13th, 2021.
We wish Marilynn the best of luck in her
future endeavors and thank her for 2.5 years
of service to the organic industry in Alberta.
Over the next few months, the Organic
Alberta team will be working to reorganize
and develop a plan forward. During this
transition period, it is our priority to
maintain a stable and effective organization
and appreciate your patience and
understanding.
We are hopeful and excited for the next
chapter of Organic Alberta as we continue
to represent, support, and grow the organic
community in the province. If you have any
questions or concerns during this transition
process, please do not hesitate to reach out
to me directly at newellsfarm@gmail.com
The Annual General Meeting during our 2021
Virtual Conference and Trade Show saw
some changes to our Board of Directors.
After 5 years, Heather Kerschbaumer has
timed out as a Board Member, and after 3
years, Arnold Van Os has stepped down from
the Board. Thank you, Heather and Arnold,
for your continued dedication to helping
Organic Alberta grow through the years.
We would like to welcome Ed Szymanek as
our new Central Region Representative, and
Pierre Fillion as our new Northern Region
VOLUME 13 ISSUE 01
Ed, along with his wife Carol operate a
450-acre organic hay and grain farm 50
km’s west of Red Deer. After 42 years of
working off farm in oil and gas operations,
Ed has just retired and is looking forward
to being a full-time farmer. In the past Ed
has also facilitated several “7 Habits of
Highly Effective People” programs and
enjoys working with people in a
collaborative environment. Ed and Carol
have four grown children, and five
adorable grandchildren. Ed is looking
forward to the networking and learning
opportunities of being involved with
Organic Alberta.
Pierre is a third-generation farmer in
Donnelly, AB and after high school joined
the family farm that began in 1916. This
farm had its start as a mixed farm but by
this time had evolved into a conventional
grain farm. At the age of 38, a diagnosis of
cancer in the right eye became pivotal.
Pierre sought the care of a naturopathic
doctor to help reverse the condition that
brought on the cancer. From this, he soon
realized the close connection between
human health and soil health and what
clean, nutrient-dense food can do. Less
chemical exposure for himself and his
family also became important, make
compelling reasons to eat and farm
organically. The farm is now at three
different stages with 20% organic, 20%
transitioning and the rest to transition
over a few years. Pierre now shares the
joys and challenges of organic farming
with his wife and with his two children,
potentially fourth generation farmers.
We are looking forward to the future of
Organic Alberta and thank our board for
all of their hard work.
ORGANIC ALBERTA CONTACTS
Programs: Iris Vaisman at
iris.vaisman@organicalberta or Tierra
Stokes at tierra.stokes@organicalberta.org
Communications, Administration, and
Billing Inquiries: Cari Hartt at
cari.hartt@organicalberta.org
Events: Sarah Preston at
sarah.preston@organicalberta.org
Young Agrarians: Dana Penrice at
dana.penrice@organicalberta.org
SPRING 2021 VOLUME 13 ISSUE 01

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 SPRING 2021
IN CONVERSATION WITH BEEKEEPER
TRACEY SMITH, BEANSTALK HONEY
By Trina Moyles, Rural Routes to Climate
Solutions (Edited for length)
Tracey Smith grew up near North Cooking
Lake in Strathcona County. In 2010, Tracey
got started on her family’s farm. She grew
vegetables and kept a few hives, mostly
just for pollination. But that first summer,
she struggled to sell her vegetables,
whereas, the honey sales flowed. That’s
when she decided to concentrate solely
on honey. Tracey dove right into the world
of beekeeping, attending conferences and
workshops, and talking to beekeepers
whenever she could. She was thrilled to
get into local farmer’s markets to sell her
honey. “I just really focused my existence
on honey bees,” she laughs.
Today, Tracey runs Beanstalk Honey and
sells her honey at the Old Strathcona
Farmer’s Market in Edmonton, and
through a new online market. She keeps
bees without the use of antibiotics or
chemical synthetics, overwinters her
colonies, and breeds her own queens.
Recently, we interviewed Tracey about her
journey into the world of beekeeping,
learning about her approach to working
with bees, the advantages of queen
breeding, the value of biodiversity for
nectar flows, and how changes in seasonal
weather patterns are impacting honey
bees.
RR2CS: Can you tell us more about your
approach to beekeeping? Who were
some of your early mentors?
Tracey: I had some really good mentors
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who helped me out at the beginning.
One of my first contacts was with our
provincial apiculturist, Medhat Nasr. He
was really kind. I had already bought
bees and realized I didn’t know how to be
a beekeeper – there’s a huge learning
curve in beekeeping. I took a workshop
with Medhat and learned so much about
various aspects of beekeeping. Two years
later, Medhat invited me to teach the
marketing course for the same workshop,
so it allowed me to take the course again
and again. Through repetition, I really
learned.
Another beekeeper and presenter, Tom
Hegan, was teaching about seasonal
management and a more self-sufficient
approach to beekeeping. He was one of
the early beekeepers who started
overwintering their colonies in Alberta.
Beekeepers used to kill their colonies
every fall and buy new packages from the
States, rather than overwintering their
bees, but in the 1970s, there was a
movement for more self-sufficient
beekeeping. They put more effort into
wintering their colonies, breeding their
own queens in the springtime to replace
their winter hive losses.
I learned a great deal with Tom and a
handful of other beekeepers in Alberta
and Saskatchewan. As a result, my
approach is a bit different from many
other beekeepers in Alberta. I don’t rely
on buying packages in the springtime.
I’m more focused on queen breeding
and timing everything with natural
nectar flows, instead of supplemental
feeding.
VOLUME 13 ISSUE 01
RR2CS: What is supplemental feeding?
How does your approach differ?
Tracey: With supplemental feeding,
beekeepers start supplementing their
colonies with protein and sugar syrup to
jumpstart their bee populations in mid to
late March. This is several weeks to a month
earlier than naturally occurring pollen
flows. Beekeepers will build young hives
from their larger colonies, and then import
queen bees from Hawaii to put into those
younger colonies (because we can’t breed
queens that early in Alberta).
With my approach, I don’t typically feed
early. Instead, I wait for the natural pollen
flows and it just naturally happens that the
bees start building their populations in time
with the environment. Basically, I time the
population cycle with the natural
environment, which allows me to breed my
own queens.
RR2CS: Do most beekeepers get their
queens from Hawaii?
Tracey: Yes, Hawaii is one of the largest
breeders [and exporters] of queen bees to
Alberta. Actually, right now Alberta
beekeepers are concerned because Hawaii
is getting hit by a hurricane right now and
they’re worried how it might impact queen
production.
RR2CS: Does breeding your own queens
give you more “queen security?”
Tracey: I always thought if I’m breeding my
own queens here, I would have more
security than someone buying them from
Hawaii. Some Albertan beekeepers will do
both – a hybrid model. They import queens
SPRING 2021
from Hawaii early in the season, but
they’re also breeding their own queens
later on in the season.
I think this hybrid approach is actually the
most secure model. It’s good to not put all
your eggs in one basket. If the weather is
bad in Hawaii, breed here. But if the
weather is bad here, import from
elsewhere. This took me a few years to
learn.
RR2CS: How is the weather impacting
your queen breeding in Alberta?
Tracey: If we have a late, cold spring, it will
delay the bees, and the populations won’t
be very large. For example, the queens
need to fly out of their hives to mate with
drones. They meet in what’s called a
drone congregation area. The queens
really only do one mating flight, more or
less, in their entire lifetime. They store
sperm inside their bodies and fertilize the
eggs as they’re laying them. It’s only a
week-long window that they’re mating, so
the queens rely on warm, decent weather.
In June and July over the past several
years, the weather has been quite rainy
and cold, so it’s been hard to breed the
queens. This is why Hawaii does well with
queen breeding as their weather is more
consistently sunny and warm. If our
weather patterns get out of sync with the
bee’s natural cycles, they start to develop
many health issues. On the flipside, if the
weather is really hot in the spring, it can
cause the plants to bloom too early. Come
July, there’s no plants left for bees and it
can be a challenge to get them ready for
the winter. Over the past few years, the
weather has been all over the place and
bees are really susceptible to these
changes.
RR2CS: What is the importance of
biodiversity in beekeeping?
Tracey: Plants have different windows of
time when they’re producing nectar.
They’re impacted by temperatures in the
day and at night, humidity, and so forth.
It’s important to have a diversity of plants
for bees to feed on. If you have only, say,
canola, everything is riding on whether or
not it will produce nectar, and what
happens when that canola flow is done?
But if you’re in an area that has canola,
clover, alfalfa, along with stands of aspen,
willow, raspberries and wild roses, there
will always be nectar flow for the bees to
feed on.
RR2CS: Can you tell us more about how
you were involved in Alberta Agriculture
and Forestry’s “Bee Health App”?
Tracey: Medhat Nasr invited me to help
with the creation of the Bee Health app
(designed to help beekeepers to detect,
identify, manage and treat honeybee
diseases and pests). As a team of
apiarists, we listed the signs for different
diseases and pests that affect honeybees.
I helped write up the content and
developed the algorithm for a sign
checking component – where you can
check off different signs of ill-health in
your hives and the app determines the
most likely pest. It’s a very cool resource
for beekeepers in Alberta.
RR2CS: What experience do you have in
disease identification? And what
diseases are beekeepers dealing with
today in Alberta?
Tracey: As an undergrad student, I was
really good at bird identification. I’d see a
flash of a bird in the woods and
somehow, I’d just instantly know what it
was. I’ve realized I can see things –
moving things – really quickly. The same
skill allows me to identify sick brood and
bees really quickly. I didn’t think that was
a unique skill until I was beekeeping in
Florida and spent time with a number of
beekeeping experts. I like to say that it’s
my one unique ability as a beekeeper – I
can really spot sick brood and bees
quickly, for whatever reason.
The number one pest you hear about in
the media all of the time is varroa mites,
a parasitic mite that feeds on honeybees
(and results in a disease called varroosis).
It’s been an ongoing issue for beekeepers
that can devastate our colonies.
But currently in Alberta, we’re seeing an
outbreak in European foulbrood (EFB), a
bacterial infection that affects the
digestive tracts of the larvae in the hives.
RR2CS: How have erratic freeze-thaw
cycles impacted overwintering your
hives?
Tracey: Up until 2016, I’d never really had
major winter losses, but over the past few
years, I’ve been getting walloped. I’m not
sure if a freeze-thaw cycle in December
makes that much of a difference. But a
cold spring (in April, for example) can be
really hard on the bees. In addition, we’ve
been having really warm falls, but there’s
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VOLUME 13 ISSUE 01
no nectar flow, which tends to confuse the
bees, too.
But if you want to talk about environmental
changes, the biggest challenge is managing
for cold and rainy summers. It’s a big
problem.
Historically, our Alberta summers were
perfect for bees: there was a willow flow,
followed by dandelion, then clover and
canola, all spaced by a few weeks to help
build up the populations of honey bees. But
the fluctuations in temperature and
humidity impacts when the plants are
blooming, which affects the bee’s natural
cycles, too.
RR2CS: How are you and other beekeepers
trying to adapt to these changes?
Tracey: I’m starting to think that
supplemental feeding could be an answer. I
manage my bees with the natural nectar
flows, but if these flows aren’t going to be
predictable anymore than supplemental
feeding is what I’m going to have to do.
There’s a lot of interest in the beekeeping
industry right now on fine tuning what
we’re feeding our bees and when. Knowing
when to feed the bees can help us adapt.
Another thing I’ve seen beekeepers doing is
shifting to wintering their hives indoors.
I’m a bit small for an indoor wintering
facility, but many of the commercial
beekeepers are transitioning to
overwintering indoors because you can
better control the climate. Neither of these
solutions are ideal from a sustainability
perspective, but if it’s what we need to do
to keep bees alive and thriving in Alberta,
well, then it’s an adaptation process.
Farm solutions are climate solutions and
many of them have multiple concrete benefits
that go beyond stopping climate change:
improving soil fertility; creating new economic
opportunities; protecting biodiversity; energy
independence and building resiliency against
droughts and floods. It is a win-win strategy.
Rural Routes to Climate Solutions is working
with producers and other members of the
rural community to put this win-win strategy
into action. By providing learning
opportunities to better understand climate
solutions, we are empowering rural Albertans
with the tools to reap the benefits of climate
solutions for themselves and their
communities. Visit their website at
www.rr2cs.ca to learn more.
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 SPRING 2021 VOLUME 13 ISSUE 01

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 SPRING 2021
Humalite is a naturally occurring
humic substance containing organic
matter and high concentrations of
humic acid. Humalite and humic acid
are soil amendments that can
provide benefits in the following
areas:
Enhance nutrient uptake and
cation exchange capacity (CEC)
Improve water retention
Stimulate microbiology
Add carbon to your soil
Improve soil structure
Humalite is produced locally at the
Sheerness Mine, South of Hanna,
Alberta. Our Humalite is recovered
from shallow resources just below the
earth’s surface and made available in
8 WWW.ORGANICALBERTA.ORG
VOLUME 13 ISSUE 01
its natural form or can be screened We would also like to hear from you
to various sizes to meet agricultural about how we can tailor our
and end user application product to suit your requirements!
requirements.
Contact the Sheerness Mine at:
Naturally occurring Humalite is (403) 854-5200 or by email at
available for bulk pickup by the Humalite@Westmoreland.com.
truck load or 1-tonne totes in the
following sizes:
Raw Humalite
Screened Humalite < 0.50”
Screened Humalite 0.25” – 0.5”
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Contact the Sheerness Mine to learn
more about our Humalite and how
we have created affordable soil
amendment options for all budgets. PAID ADVERTISEMENT
SPRING 2021
PEAS ON EARTH: EXPERIENCE PASSED DOWN THROUGH GENERATIONS
By Michelle Yam, New Farmer Engagement
Coordinator, Young Agrarians
Eric and Ruby Chen are a couple based
out of Edmonton, AB, who have always
had a passion for growing food. When
asked about their farming history, they
explain that it “runs in the family”, with
experience passed down generations
originating from Laos. “We’ve always liked
growing things and raising animals”, Eric
explains. To the Chen family, it seemed
like the natural path of choice to become
farmers themselves.
They started out small, growing
vegetables part time on Eric’s parents’
property just North of Edmonton, selling
to local markets. After 16 years of this,
they decided it was time to fully emerge
themselves and become full-time farmers.
In 2003, they began to look for land to call
their own.
When looking for land, they were after
two main things. First of all, they wanted
land North of Edmonton as their children
attended school in the city. It was
important for them to be able to easily
commute between the two places. Second
of all, they were looking for good soil to
grow their crops.
Eric and Ruby didn’t use the internet or a
realtor to find their land. They wanted to
get to know their land as close as possible
so in their down-time, they drove around
in their vehicle in rural areas just North of
Edmonton, looking for signs of land for
sale that met their needs. This process for
them was relatively fast and within no
time, they found land North/Northeast of
St. Albert, where they farm today. The
land itself was not previously owned by
organic farmers so it took them about 3
years to be able to transform the land to
a place where they could grow
vegetables organically.
To finance their purchase of the land,
they reached out to three primary
resources:
A Beginner’s Farmer Loan from the
AFSC (Agriculture Financial Services
Corporation). This required a solid
business plan and proof of experience.
A loan from their parents. They
wanted their parents to invest in the
farm.
Personal savings, which they built up
from their part-time farm sales.
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It may sound like the process was relatively
easy, but it definitely came with tough
challenges. For one example, building the
greenhouses was described as a
“painstaking process”. It took a lot of time,
money, and different skill-based resources
to get that going. Other considerations
included the acquisition of equipment used
for the field and their washing/packing
stations, vehicles used to transport produce
between the farm and the market, and the
special insulation required for their food
storage. Luckily for them, they were able to
offset some of these costs by purchasing
used farming equipment from their
mentors, James and Jenny of Sundog
Organic Farm, and Denis and Ruth of
Vriend’s Organic Garden.
Part of the land has been sold off, some of it
is rented, and the remaining 25 acres are
used for growing mixed organic vegetables
sold through local markets, a CSA program,
and distributors like Organic Box. For the
past few years, the Chens have also been on
the lookout for another piece of land in the
area to expand their operations, although
nothing has caught their attention yet.
This case study is a part of Young Agrarians
Alberta Land Access Guide, a toolkit for new
farmers like YOU to help guide you through
this big, rather intimidating step in your career
path as a regenerative farmer. It’s a collection
of stories of wins, loses, and everything in-
between. For land seekers, it will give you
ideas to explore when you are looking for land.
For land holders, it will give you context
around what new farmers are looking for. Get
your free copy of the Land Access Guide at
www.youngagrarians.org.
9
 SPRING 2021
ORGANIC AGRONOMY SHOPTALK
By Cari Hartt, Organic Alberta
We often hear that our members are
inspired and moved by the work of other
producers, so we knew that hearing
directly from an organic producer was an
opportunity to learn further afield and
hear what’s going on in the organic
community in Canada. Matthew Dewavrin
is an agronomist and third-generation
owner of Les Fermes Longprés, an organic
field crop operation located an hour west
of Montreal. The Dewavrin family has been
farming since 1977 and now grow about
1500 acres of land with soil conservation,
self-sufficiency, and vertical integration in
mind. During our 2021 Conference,
"Revitalizing the Farm Web: Cultivating
Crops and Community", Matthew shared a
bit about his farm and some of the
practices they employ, and discussed the
challenges and opportunities of being an
organic producer today.
Review of Rotation, Weed Control,
Fertilization, Tillage System and Grain
Marketing
Les Fermes Longpres is approximately
1500 acres on the shores of the Saint
Lawrence River in Montreal, Quebec. They
mostly grow corn, soybeans, hard red
spring wheat, hard red winter wheat,
green peas, sweet-corn (bonduelle), oats,
and forage peas. They process their own
wheat and produce 750 tonnes of flour
annually. They mostly farm heavy soils,
with 60% being heavy clay, 35% clay-loam,
and 5% sandy-loam.
10
Previously farmed by Matthew’s
grandparents, then later his father and
uncles, the farm was transferred to
Matthew and other family members in
December of 2019. They are now
continuing to build on the foundations
their predecessors laid in terms of on-
farm testing, innovation, and
diversification.
Objective, Values and Mission
Self-Sufficiency
Self-sufficiency is a core value of their
business. They grow their own seed for
soybeans and wheat, have seed cleaning
capabilities, take on machinery design
and maintenance (manure spreader,
seeder for intercropping, and more),
market themselves, and build their farm
infrastructure.
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Soil Conservation
Soil conservation is another big part of their
values. The farm incorporates green
manures and cover crops and limits the use
of manure. Additionally, they focus on light
equipment and traffic control to decrease
compaction.
Biodiversity
The farm supports biodiversity in various
ways including through organic
certification, integrating shelterbelts, strip
cropping, and preserving and enriching
animal habitats.
Vertical Integration
Vertical integration is an important part of
their operation. Their flour mill brings
revenue stability, and their marketing to
the Greater-Montreal area and Vermont is
based on traceability, transparency, and
environmental preservation.
Equipment and Practices
Ridge Till
Les Fermes Longpres differs from many
organic producers in Quebec with their use
of ridge tilling. Utilizing an RTK GPS
guidance system, they create ridges in corn
and sunflowers, or after cereals. It’s a great
no-till production system that allows them
to get great cover while minimizing
plowing and soil disturbance at planting,
helps dry their fields faster in the spring,
and saves time and money (no plowing, no
soil prep in spring, and saves on operational
costs when compared to conventional
tilling).
SPRING 2021
Strip Cropping
Another technique employed on the farm
is Strip Cropping, used to prevent insect
and pest outbreaks. They consistently
split the field into 18 and 36 m strips. By
repeating the border effect, they create
more diversity in the beneficial insect
population and synchronize better the
presence of beneficial insects versus the
peak outbreak.
Growing Corn Without Manure
In the Quebec farming landscape, there is
a big phosphorus pollution problem, and
therefore the use of manure has been
regulated since the 1990’s. Soil tests are
required every five years, an annual
phosphorus use report submitted, and
their fertilization plan overseen by an
agronomist. Les Fermes Longpres relies
exclusively on green manures to grow
corn, which results in increased
autonomy, long term durability, and
decreases soil compaction.
The farm has been running side by side
trials for the past 15 years to confirm yield
differences, and they’ve seen that manure
application in corn is not necessary when
a good green manure crop is grown the
year before.
Double Cropping
Double cropping is a good way to
harness the agronomic potential of short
season crops without affecting the
bottom line. The farm seeds about
170kg/ha of spring wheat with 60 kg/ha
of yellow peas. They are also doing wheat
and lentil trials.
Seed Production
The farm is self-sufficient for soybeans
and wheat seeds, with seed cleaning
capabilities and selection in the field.
However, there is a need for genetics
adapted to their production system, so
the farm has been working with Dr.
Martin Entz of the University of Manitoba
on his Participatory Wheat Breeding
Program. For other crops, they are highly
dependent on input providers for corn as
there is only untreated conventionally
produced seeds available, and GMO
contamination in the bag. Coop AgroBio
du Quebec is assisting with GMO testing
of seeds and have an alliance with
Austrian Farmers Coop (SAATBAU) to
import organic corn seeds and reduce
the dependence on input providers.
Challenges
There are many challenges that organic
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producers work continuously to overcome.
Matthew explained that the challenges
experienced at Les Fermes Longpres
include perennial weeds, GMO
contamination, seed availability, land value,
urban expansion, and climate change.
Opportunities
Despite the challenges facing organic
producers today, Matthew believes that
there are also various opportunities. There
is a social appetite for food autonomy,
transparency, short supply chains, organic
food products, and regenerative agriculture.
Quebec specifically has very ambitious
government initiatives and subsidy
programs for organic producers and
processors. There is also strength and
opportunity in collective marketing,
diversification, and direct consumer sales.
Les Fermes Longpres is currently
participating in numerous projects,
including organic corn hybrid performance
testing network, pollinator habitat
enrichment, a long-term soil health
monitoring network, and more. We are very
excited to see what innovations Matthew
and his farm team continue to bring to the
sector as they harness the opportunities
available to organic producers today.
11
 SPRING 2021
CONNECTING WITH CONSUMERS AND ADAPTING TO MARKETS IN 2021
During our 2021 Virtual Conference and
Trade Show, “Revitalizing the Farm Web:
Cultivating Crops and Community” we
were joined by five producers who shared
practical tips on diversifying your direct
marketing through retail sales, social
media, crafting a marketing campaign,
and sharing your farm story sustainably.
We’ve pulled the key points from each
presentation and put together this article
to help you connect with consumers and
adapt to markets in the ever-changing
landscape of 2021.
Online Sales
Field Sparrow Farms direct markets grass-
fed beef, pastured pork, and pastured
chicken, and is run by Sarah Bakker. From
2009 to 2019, 80% of their sales revenue
came from farmers markets, with the
remaining revenue coming from
wholesale. When the COVID-19 pandemic
hit, Field Sparrow Farms had to adjust
their sales to an online delivery system
and picked up some helpful tips along the
way.
Online Delivery Key Considerations:
Product Line Complexity
Do you have a few products with a
large inventory? Are you able to
produce more quickly? A simple model
will be easier to track and provide you
with savings.
For more complex and wide variety,
coming in at different weights,
something more robust may be
required (Square, Shopify, Grapecart,
and Local Line, just to name a few).
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Sales System Considerations
When is payment due? Directly upon
ordering or is there flexibility in
schedule?
How are you taking payment? Credit
cards are used widely but carry fees. If
you’re accepting e-transfers, be sure
to set up auto deposit!
How does the system allow you to
communicate with customers?
How are your customers getting the
product and when? Delivery or pickup
from farm? Does the system allow you
to charge delivery fees?
What kind of data do you want to
collect?
Other Recommendations and Advice
Build your email lists – having control
of your data is so important.
Build relationships with others in the
farming community to supplement
your offerings.
Don’t wait to make it perfect!
Social Media Marketing
Smarter by Nature is a regenerative,
small-scale farm in Northern Florida, run
by Angelique Taylor and David ‘Kip'
Ritchey. Angelique and Kip share their
journey and connect with their local and
online communities. Their presentation
gave practical tips about how to use
social media platforms (Instagram,
YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to grow
and engage with online audiences and
customers.
Consider the 4 C’s of social media to
build trust between your brand and
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audience. What character do you present
to your community? The goal is to create
value for people to engage in. Consider
what values you incorporate in your space
and how these values shape your business.
What content will you be sharing? Break
down your processes and share each step
using various methods like ASMR, How-To’s,
Vlogging, etc. How will you communicate?
Be vulnerable, share your process, and work
to educate (it is the responsibility of
growers to educate consumers) and build
your social credit and trust with your
audience. And finally, consistency is key.
Post each week to create a pattern for
consumers to latch onto (Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays are statistically
the best days to post).
Social Media Key Considerations:
Everything You do is Valuable
Document your processes.
Content comes from the smallest acts
and ideas.
Write those ideas down as soon as they
come to you.
What’s Old to You is News to Them
There’s always someone wanting to learn
what you know.
Teach in cycles and with the seasons.
Continuously share as if the content is
new.
Engage With Other Profiles
Interaction and engagement are
rewarded with community.
Comment, like, and share posts from
other people in your community.
SPRING 2021
Follow Who You Want to Follow
Follow people who inspire you and
learn from them.
Use Keywords (SEO) With Tags
Titles and descriptions help users find
your content.
Hashtags help you expand your
audience.
Use Tools Like Stories, Carousels, Reels –
They’re There for a Reason!
The more you use the features of the
platform, the more your profile will be
rewarded in the form of more traffic.
Each feature is an opportunity to be
seen by your audience.
Tell Your Story
Don’t just post a picture with a short
caption. Content is more than just a
photo!
Your story is how your audience and
customers will get to know and trust
you.
Retail Sales and Marketing
Andrew Rosychuk, a city slicker turned
haskap fruit farmer, has grown his 27-acre
orchard north of Edmonton since 2016.
Andrew’s initial goal was to get into
wholesale, but as Rosy Farms grew,
Andrew’s focus has shifted from
production to processing. His journey into
wholesale taught him some valuable
lessons, which you can consider when
getting into retail sales.
Retail Sales Key Considerations:
There are Many Steps Involved
But tons of support networks.
Easy to get Into Stores but Difficult to
Market and Sell
Ask your neighbourhood store
manager for advice.
Without customer interaction,
marketing and graphic design are key.
Build Your Team
Expert friends.
Unpaid board.
Trade goods and services.
Hire a consultant. There are
professionals for a reason!
Do Your Target Market Research
Your marketing goal is to interact and
connect with customers.
What makes you different?
Who is your customer? How do they
make decisions? Draw a customer
roadmap.
Marketing Campaigns
Traditional marketing doesn't work
like it used to.
Build targeted campaigns based on
your target markets.
Create and test small batch plans.
Ask your customers what they want.
Other Considerations and Advice
Bottom up or top down pricing?
Product development is expensive if
you want to be in numerous stores.
Think about scale and distribution.
Sharing Your Farm Story Publicly
Katelyn Duban, born and raised in
Southern Alberta, married into
agriculture in 2016, and continues to
develop her skills as a grain farmer on
and off the field. She started sharing her
journey online through social media to
connect with others in agriculture. She
quickly found a common trend amongst
producers; mental health and wellness
was not a high priority.
Katelyn continues to do the work to help
end the stigmas surrounding mental
health as well as sharing the good word
of agriculture through her blog, social
media platforms (@WildRoseFarmer) and
on The Rural Woman Podcast. Katelyn
shared some tips on what she has
learned through her agricultujourney.
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VOLUME 13 ISSUE 01
Sharing our Stories Online:
“Nobody can tell your story the way you can
tell your story” – Danielle LaPorte
We live a life that not many have the
opportunity to live.
General public has an interest in where
their food comes from.
People seek connection in different
ways. Consumers want a deeper
understanding of how their food was
raised and grown.
If we’re not the ones sharing our stories
in agriculture, someone else will.
Community Over Competition
Agriculture can be extremely isolating.
Help consumers find competency in our
industry.
Build and expand your community to
include diverse backgrounds,
experiences, and methods.
The best businesses are concerned with
how best to serve their customers.
Preventing Social Media Burnout
Identify your goal for using social media.
Use the platform(s) your ideal customers
and community use.
Don’t compare yourself to others.
Set boundaries.
You are more than your farm.
Thank you to the “Revitalizing the Farm
Web: Cultivating Crops and Community”
presenters for sharing these practical tips
on diversifying your direct marketing
through retail sales, social media, crafting
a marketing campaign, and sharing your
farm story sustainably. We hope that their
stories and suggestions will help you
connect with consumers and adapt to
markets in 2021.
To view this presentation and others from
our 2021 conference, email
info@organicalberta.org.
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 SPRING 2021
GOODBYE TO CANADA'S 'AVERAGE' FARM
Republished with permission from Country-
Guide. Written by Lorraine Stevenson.
What does an average farm look like in
today’s Canada. If there is such a thing
these days, there’s a good chance it looks a
lot more like Scott Beaton’s farm than you
would ever have thought possible.
Beaton didn’t grow up on a farm, or think
he’d ever have one of his own, but if being
interested counts, his roots in agriculture
do run deep. “As a kid I always helped this
neighbour family out,” he recalls. “That’s
kind of all I remember of summers as a kid.”
Today that family is helping him as he
endeavours to farm the few hundred acres
he now rents from them.
Along the way, Beaton earned his
agriculture degree at the University of
Manitoba and worked a few years in the
industry, too. But his first foot in the door
came in 2012, while working with a
conservation group helping farmers
develop environmental farm management
plans. He met a local landowner and
somehow as they talked, they had a
meeting of minds. Without a successor of
her own, she agreed to a rent-to-own
arrangement with Beaton for an 80-acre
parcel of her land.
And that’s how it happened. Another
neighbour loaned him equipment, and
Beaton got his start. More recently he’s also
begun to rent an additional 200 acres from
another farmer who wants to step back a
bit.
16
Coincidentally, the land he began farming
in 2008 is just down the road from where
his grandfather once took a crack at
farming.
“He had a short-lived farm, you could say,”
says Beaton. “It was kind of to be his
retirement, but he had to quit in the mid-
1980s.”
Beaton, now 33, is just getting started. And
he’s serious about trying to do something
different, paying close attention to
markets, niches and trends.
Meanwhile, though, more and more of
Canada’s productive capacity is at the
opposite end of the farm spectrum. It’s
owned and operated by the country’s
largest farms.
If it’s boom times for small farms, it is for
our biggest farms too. So where does that
leave our in-between farms, and the farms
that we used to call average? That, as they
say, is a horse of a different colour.
More Farms Then
Canada’s farm scene looks vastly different
than 40 years ago. Not only were there a
lot more farms than there are now, but
they were also a lot more similar to each
other in size and structure, too. By
contrast, today’s farms are increasingly
differentiated, including by size.
Alfons Weersink, an agricultural economist
at the University of Guelph, has explored
these changes, looking not only at the
statistics, and the reasons for them, but
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the implications for agriculture as farm size
and structure become much more diverse.
The drop in farm numbers has been going on
for generations, says Weersink. But what he
has discovered is that the erosion hasn’t hit
all farm sizes equally.
The trend goes back to the end of the Great
Depression. In 1941, there were approximately
733,000 farms in Canada. Now there are fewer
than 194,000 farms run by 272,000 farmers.
Importantly, the decline has occurred mainly
among mid-sized operations. “The drop has
been particularly significant in the mid-size
category resulting in a ‘hollowing out of the
middle,’” Weersink says.
Also striking is the increase in the absolute
number of farms in the largest farm
categories, and an increase in their share of
Canada’s farmland. On its own, that won’t
surprise a lot of farmers. But there’s
something else that probably will.
An Unexpected Trend
Researchers are finding something surprising
in the census numbers.
“There has been a steady decline in the
number of farms for the last 70 years (around
1.5 per cent per year),” Weersink says. Okay, so
no surprise there.
“But the sector is actually much more
dynamic,” he goes on to say. “Around one-
quarter of census farms are new entrants.
They were not in operation in the previous
census.”
SPRING 2021
Percentage of Total Sales
Beyond farm size, there’s a more telling
measure of the changes over the last four
decades. This is the percentage of total
sales generated by different farm size
groups.
In 1981, one-third of the farmers had sales
between $100,000 to $250,000,
representing about one-third of all
agricultural sales.
By contrast, in 2016, over half of all sales
came from farms selling more than $1
million, and they represented around 15
per cent of the farms.
This accounts for what at first seems a
contradiction. As noted above, the
number of small farms continues to grow,
but the average size of a Canadian farm
continues to grow as well. And again, this
bears little resemblance to the kinds of
trends a generation ago.
In the 1980s, farms were operated by a
single farmer and they supported a single
farm family. The operator worked full-time
on the farm, too, and these farms tended
to be diversified with multiple crops
and/or livestock species. As many readers
will also remember, though, those farms
tended not to make much money.
Now, farm structure is much more
complex with a farmer having multiple
operations or with multiple farmers
involved in a single farm with off-farm
income playing a growing role.
All of this developed steadily over time, of
course, although the pace varied
depending on events and prices.
Commodity and Regional Variation
The story varies from commodity to
commodity, and region to region.
For example, changes that have come to
the dairy sector are relatively less
pronounced compared to other livestock
sectors, says Weersink. Dairy is still
comparatively more homogeneous
relative to other commodities, he says.
“There has been obvious growth. But it
has been limited by the ability to get
quota, and, in comparison to other supply
management sectors, very small herds are
infeasible compared to small flocks of
chickens or hens.”
Canadian hog farmers tell a much
different story. Major structural changes
in the late 1990s and early 2000s took
place in their sector as a result of low
prices, the emergence of hog loops, and
packing plant changes, says Weersink.
Average farm size has increased by
approximately 10 per cent between
census years for farms in Saskatchewan
and is now 1,784 acres, points out
Weersink. It has increased by half that
rate in Ontario, where average farm size
is now 249 acres.
Other signs of growing heterogeneity in
the farm sector are what farms specialize
and focus on, where their markets are
and what their ownership structures look
like. The major drivers behind it have
been technological innovations and
consumer demand, combined with
information technologies, which has
fostered the growth in niche markets.
These niche markets have arisen due to
the growing heterogeneity among
consumers, adds Weersink.
Notably, what’s been happening in the
farm sector is mirrored across other parts
of the agri-food industry, too.
More Specialization
It goes without saying that farm
expansion across all sectors is driven by
owners seeking economies of size and
scale to boost profitability and clear a
path to bring adult children on board.
These larger farms now regularly support
more than one generation of the family,
and individuals are often in specialized
roles, says Len Kahn, head of Kahntact
Marketing, based in Guelph, Ont.
“There’s more and more specialization on
the farm,” he says. “One guy is more on
the agronomy side. Someone else might
be more focused on the finance, and
someone else may be more focused on
machinery.”
Kahn says they are also seeing more
examples of larger commercial farms
adding smaller niche production into
their operations, although it’s too soon to
suggest that is a trend. These farms are
also renting more land as they bring
another generation of the family into the
business.
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Land for Rent
The amount of farmland rented is also
growing, and one of the reasons is because
farms are getting larger. “The growing
share of the large farms in total production
means that transferring operations
between generations of such farms is
becoming even more complicated,” Kahn
says.
“A consequence is more land is likely to be
held in trust by the next generation rather
than attempting to farm it. In addition,
farmland continues to be an attractive
investment for outside investors. The net
result is more farmland available to rent,
which increases the opportunity to farm
regardless of size as not as much capital is
required.”
The bottom line is that it’s becoming a lot
more difficult to define an “average” farmer
nowadays.
Implications of Heterogeneity
And that’s where the implications of
increasing heterogeneity in the farm sector
lie, says Weersink.
Obviously, it’s going to be more complex to
design agriculture policy. Improving the
livelihood of farmers and their families
through farm price supports and extension
programs made sense when most farmers
were those single operators supporting
their one single family on the farm. Now we
have multiple operations and multiple
farmers on a single farm, and off-farm
income is also playing an increasing role.
“So now it is difficult to determine the
objective of farm food policy and to whom it
should be targeted,” Weersink says.
And, again, increasing diversity changes
something else too. Average numbers from
statistics used to be representative of the
typical producer a generation ago, but this
is less and less so as the middle continues
to hollow out.
It all means that assessing the economic
conditions for farmers now requires looking
beyond the average numbers, Weersink
says.
This story has been edited for length. Find
the full article on the Country Guide
Website at www.country-guide.ca.
17
 SPRING 2021 VOLUME 13 ISSUE 01

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