BC THE ORGANIC WAY by Marya Skrypiczajko
Lately, it seems to me that when I read or write about organic food
issues, the stories are almost always focused on the negative things
happening to our planet; pesticides causing disease, genetically modified
foods entering the marketplace, small family farms going out of business,
etc. I agree these are very important subjects to talk and think about,
but there are plenty of positive stories within the worlds of food
and agriculture.
Throughout British Columbia there is a wide range of successful organic farms
in operation that supply us with healthy, delicious food; educate
us on the merits of organic agriculture; and nurture the land beyond
the needs of organic farming. Two farms that are representative
of this broad spectrum are Glen Valley Organic Farm Cooperative
(GVOFC) near Abbotsford and Wildwood Farm in the Peace River country
of northern BC.
GVOFC is cooperatively run with over 70 shareholders each co-owning
the mixed vegetable, fruit and egg farm. While there are only four
resident farmers at Glen Valley, all shareholders engage in the
management of the co-op and work in teams to take on different aspects
of running the farm from administration and land use planning, to
barnyard maintenance.
According to Alyson Chisholm, one of the resident farmers, “Creating
opportunities for organic farmers to make a living by farming is
only part of what GVOFC is about. We are also very interested in
sharing information on sustainable living. We do this by training
young people in organic farming skills, offering farm tours to groups
and by having regular open houses and seasonal celebrations to welcome
the public.”
The annual summer lunch is particularly inviting. Shareholders,
locals and tourists gather at Glen Valley to celebrate summer’s
bounty and to raise money for the co-op. Top chefs from Vancouver
prepare organic food straight from the farm’s gardens, musicians
gather to play live music, and a clown or two mingle with the crowd.
For the young chef’s contest, apprentice chefs are timed to
run to the gardens, pick their desired ingredients and dash back
to the outdoor kitchen to prepare creative dishes, which are judged
by the winners of a raffle draw. This year, the event will be Sunday,
August 8 from noon to 4 pm. For information, contact Susan at 604
857-1400.
At the other end of BC and at a different point in the organic
spectrum is Wildwood Farm in Pouce Coupe, southwest of Dawson Creek.
Tim and Linda Ewert have been creating and nurturing Wildwood Farm
since the early 1970s when they discovered the area and their particular
piece of land. The parcel they bought was virgin land that had never
been farmed or built on before so they started from scratch to build
themselves a home, barns, and the necessary outbuildings, as well
as to prepare the farmland. And they dreamed of doing it all off
the grid.
Thirty years later, they are still at Wildwood Farm, powering their
home with a small solar array and farming organically with the help
of five Percheron horses that do the work of typical farm machinery.
The use of horses has reduced their fuel consumption to next to
nothing. They have the resulting wonderful source of fertilizer
and they claim that the horses keep them grounded to the land by
setting a non-industrial pace. A single horse can skid in firewood
and do some fieldwork, but with teams of two to four they can cultivate
the garden, pull sleds and wagons, plow the fields and even run
a mill that rolls feed for their pigs. Linda claims, “It is
a pleasure to work with draft animals as opposed to using a machine
- to listen to the sound of them contentedly munching hay, to feel
an affectionate brush of their soft muzzles and to be humbled by
their size and power.”
Wildwood Farm is certified organic and produces a wide range of
meats and vegetables. For those passing through Pouce Coupe, you
can arrange a visit to purchase your food by calling the Ewerts
ahead of time.
So what are we to make of these examples? It seems to me that these
two very different styles of organic farm management prove that
small farms can succeed without the use of pesticides, animal growth
hormones, or genetically modified seeds and that personal happiness
and connecting people to the land should more often be part of a
farm’s bottom line.
Marya Skrypiczajko is the author of BC the Organic Way - Where
to Find Organic Food in British Columbia available at bookstores
in Canada. For more information, visit www.bctheorganicway.com
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