Only when Slow Money meets Slow Food will a new generation of “agri-preneurs” be able to save Atlantic Canada’s farms

You don’t notice much out of the ordinary driving down Highway 6 in Tatamagouche. Here and there, the odd tractor sits outside a typical white farmhouse, dogs run across lush green yards, and people saunter down dirt driveways toward mailboxes.

Yet catching your eye is a property dotted with an odd mishmash of buildings. Most have unusual shapes: a farmhouse nearly as long as a warehouse; a triangular cabin built using mud from the neighbouring pond; and several other equally bizarre buildings, some of which have green roofing. The farm is home to Cammie Harbottle, a petite 28-year-old who also happens to be an “endangered species”: a farmer. 

Today, young farmers are a rare commodity. That’s because a growing number of older farmers aren’t passing their operations on to their children, who are instead choosing more stable careers. And who can blame them? A 2008 report by The Genuine Progress Index for Atlantic Canada warns that agricultural communities in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia are in danger of drying up, attributing increased farm debt and land costs over the years to a lower net income for farmers. In Nova Scotia and P.E.I., fewer than 10% of its farmers are under the age of 35. Meanwhile, the average age of farmers is climbing too. Almost 50% of those in Nova Scotia are 55 and older, and in P.E.I. 40% are over 55. The rest of Canada doesn’t fare much better; according to Statistics Canada, only 9% of the nation’s farmers are younger than 35. 

What’s more, if solutions aren’t found soon to transfer billions of dollars in farm capital to younger hands, the region’s agriculture industry will take a huge hit when the baby boomers finally retire. Also at risk is generations of knowledge about unique aspects of Atlantic Canadian farms and local food-production techniques. 

Ingenuity and guts 

Luckily, a crop of young agri-preneurs are blazing trails and embracing alternative models to conventional agriculture. Cammie Harbottle is one of them. She and a group of friends avoided going into debt by jointly buying the 100-acre Waldegrave Farm in Tatamagouche for $100,000. They plan to live on the property co-operatively. “Buying the land as a group meant we could collectively have access to land without taking out a mortgage,” says Harbottle, who runs a certified organic vegetable farm on her allotment. 

Harbottle came to Nova Scotia to farm six years ago, inspired by the organic-gardening techniques she learned as an apprentice at Linnaea Farm in British Columbia. But farming in Nova Scotia came with its own unique challenges. Fortunately, she and her farming partners had the guidance of Willis Cox, the farm’s former owner and a sixth-generation family farmer. “He came to the farm almost every single day and would tell us what we were doing wrong and what we should be doing,” says Harbottle, laughing. “He knows this place inside out. He knows where all the dry spots are and where the heavy soil is. He knows where all the wells are and how far down you have to go.” 

As Harbottle strolls across the property, she’s flanked by two energetic dogs and a flock of wandering geese. She’s growing more than 40 types of organic vegetables using a portable greenhouse coverage that allows her to protect different crops from the elements at different times. Right now 12 community members are buying a weekly box of produce from her, everything from fennel and eggplants to hot peppers and tomatoes. Vegetable-box memberships are gaining popularity in Atlantic Canada and are part of a global grassroots movement called Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), in which local residents make a purchase commitment to the farmers in their area. 

In April Patricia Bishop spoke about the merits of CSA at the Atlantic Agricultural Forum in Truro. Bishop, Nova Scotia’s Outstanding Young Farmer of the Year, co-owns the organic-vegetable Taproot Farm in the
Annapolis Valley with her husband, Josh Oulton. Both come from farming families but understand that today’s farmers have to do things differently than the previous generation if they want to avoid acquiring huge debt. 

In some CSA programs, residents help finance start-up costs for new farmers in exchange for food. “If you want to transition into agriculture, that’s the way to do it because you could have maybe five CSA members and slowly grow your business over time,” says Bishop, who has more than 200 members. She estimates there are about 40 CSA programs throughout Nova Scotia.

Lessons to be learned

The CSA model also allows New Brunswick farmer Katherine McCord to foster beneficial relationships with residents. McCord, her partner, Luke McLean, and their friend Mike Hadfield are all first-generation farmers under the age of 28. To keep up the momentum, the trio puts a newsletter in each vegetable box and writes a farm blog that keeps the community informed about what’s going on at their Bantry Bay Farm. 

At first, many area residents weren’t used to cooking some of the boxes vegetables, including eggplant, parsnip, and celery root, so now the farmers put recipes in each Bantry Bay Farm box to help members learn how to prepare healthy meals with their produce. “For us it’s exciting, because it means we get to educate people,” says McCord. Bantry Bay’s membership rules are flexible; some members agree to share the financial risk with the farmers and are willing to lose money if unforeseen causes wipe out the crops, while others expect to be reimbursed if such an event occurs.

In spite of these strides, it will take more than CSA programs to make farming economically viable for the next generation. Today’s successful young farmers draw upon a variety of alternatives to the conventional systems. What the Bantry Bay partners don’t sell in their vegetable boxes, they hook up to a bicycle trailer and pedal to their local farmers’ market or sell directly to restaurants in the area, such as Rossmount Inn in St. Andrews.

The gaining momentum of the Slow Food movement in Atlantic Canada is also benefiting young farmers, as restaurant owners become more interested in buying directly from them and cutting out the middleperson. Michael Howell, the chef and owner of Tempest Restaurant in Wolfville, N.S., and the president of Slow Food Nova Scotia, says Tempest sources nearly half of its produce from Taproot Farm. Howell regularly visits the farm to familiarize himself with its produce. And when he needs a certain type of produce in a pinch, he’ll head to one of the area’s farms and pick it up himself, rather than requiring the farmers to always come to him. “It’s all about creating more informal networks and deeper relationships with local producers,” says Howell. 

Nurturing the farm network

Howell would like to see Slow Food’s cousin, Slow Money, gain popularity in Atlantic Canada as well. Slow Money is an investment system in which profit expectations are redefined so that big money can help small agricultural producers provide people with local wholesome food. The movement is making huge strides in U.S. but has yet to make much of a splash in Atlantic Canada. Slow Money investors make small-scale investments in local farms in the hope of garnering slow steady returns. “I’m totally for it,” says Howell. “One of the things that Slow Food Nova Scotia advocates is that small-scale sustainable farming is a wise investment.” 

Young farmers can also benefit from growing niche markets. Prince Edward Island’s Randy Campbell is planning to tap into the health-food market by harvesting tree nuts such as black walnuts, hazelnuts, butternuts, acorns, and pine nuts. “They’re a good non-animal source of protein,” says Campbell. He drafted his business plan with the help of the P.E.I. Future Farmers Program, which helps prospective young farmers develop their skills and guides them through managing the risks involved with launching a new business. There aren’t many other Islanders farming nut trees, but Campbell believes it’s a practical choice: “The trees can be grown on steep slopes. They don’t require a whole lot of an initial investment of time, and once they establish themselves you really just have to harvest your crop and look after the tree.” 

Like Campbell, Harbottle is doing all she can to nurture the sector in Nova Scotia. She’s currently the vice-president of the National Farmers Union Youth, a network of young Canadians committed to building a food system that’s economically viable for family farms, socially just, and locally focused. She’s also working with a lawyer to try to turn her property into a community land trust. “We want to keep the land as affordable as possible, and that’s a fundamental part of the land trust model,” says Harbottle. “Hopefully, if we can figure out how to do it, then other people can use it as a model.”