The range of agricultural producers that attended the Small Farm Summit on Nov. 9 was broad, but the challenges amongst the small-scale farmers wasn’t.
More than 20 people from all corners of Rocky View County (RVC) and several from Calgary attended the event held at Millarsville Ranchers’ Hall at Heritage Park in Calgary from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Life-long RVC resident and freelance Farm Activist Jill Cairns hosted the free summit for the third year because she said it’s important to provide support for the smaller-scale farmers in an era where large, industrial-size operations are becoming the norm.
“I hope what people take away from today is that there’s other people out there doing exactly what they do in terms of a more traditional style of agriculture. And, for them to know what they’re doing is important and validating that,” said Cairns.
“I feel like it’s a responsibility of mine to encourage small-scale farming. I just don’t want to see it all become industrial agriculture. I don’t want to see one company feeding everybody - it’s bad for food supply,” she said, adding small-scale producers are “focused more on food quality and food safety.”
The crowd included a large percentage of home-grown vegetable producers, like Jack Chalmers who lives south of Langdon.
Now 80, Chalmers has been growing vegetables for more than 30 years – most of which he gives away to friends and family.
He said he “has an issue” with the title ‘organically-grown’ being attached to food.
“Back in the ‘40s when I started growing, the word organic was probably in the dictionary, but it didn’t need to be because that (method) was just common sense. People grew food for it to be healthy and have good quality,” he said to the audience.
“It’s sad that people don’t demand more for their food than what’s in the grocery stores. I don’t know how it’s ever going to change though. People are so conditioned to buy on the basis of looks and not quality,” Chalmers added.
Several other producers stood up and echoed his sentiment. Despite the growing interest in local food, some producers said it’s hard in this day-and-age to get people to see the value in home-grown food and be willing to spend the extra money on it.
For Rosemary Wotske, a 30-year farmer in northeast RVC, 20 years of selling her produce at local farmers markets wasn’t the answer.
“It’s hard work. It’s very labour intensive and there’s no short cuts,” she said, adding she used to sell her products at five farmers markets a week.
“I grew everything from asparagus to zucchini, strawberries and raspberries. I had turkeys, chickens and sheep. I made jams, jellies and pickles. But I burnt out.”
She said after speaking to several of the people at the summit, she thinks many of them are in the position she was in about 10 years ago.
“The question they have is, where do I get a reasonable return for what I do, because what I do has value. It’s far superior to anything you can buy in a grocery store, but how do I present that,” Wotske added.
Her solution was to knock on the doors of Calgary’s high-end restaurants and sell her products directly.
“Calgary is a city of foodies who love to eat out, and it’s also a city of very talented chefs. So they can understand the value of what they’re buying and they’re quite prepared to pay more for it because their customers appreciate it.”
But Wotske said the process of marketing an agricultural business is a full-time job and takes courage to be turned down but still keep trying.
“I would say 99.9 per cent of the people in this room are too shy to walk into the back door of a restaurant like I do, and say this is what I’ve got. Their self-esteem is riding on what’s in that bag and they can’t deal with being turned down, which is fair, but I had to get over that along time ago.”
Andrew Hewson, a chef instructor at SAIT, was in the crowd and said he has partnered with small agricultural businesses to help close the disconnect between food on the plate and the product in the field.
“I was seeing all these students coming in who wanted to be chefs but had no idea where their food comes from,” he added that he also started a garden at the campus six years ago.
“We need to broaden the awareness of local and home-grown food with the next generation that’s coming through,” said Hewson.
