Micro farms play big role in local food chain: Andrew Coppolino

A couple of hundred metres off Queen's Bush Road in Wellesley, you'll find Muddy Creek Farm owned and operated by Melissa Winkler. 

Despite its setting in the rural township, the quarter-acre farm is situated beside a village residential area and only a few blocks from a chop house, a computer repair shop and a financial services business.

Muddy Creek is, in that sense, something of an "urban" farm and one that, its size notwithstanding, is dedicated to farming in an ecologically friendly way to provide fresh food to the community through its weekly vegetable boxes.

Over the last several years, a number of small or micro farms with unique qualities have appeared that are similarly dedicated to sustainable agriculture that nurtures the soil and environment and the community around it.

For Winkler, who calls herself a small-scale farmer and market gardener, community connection is a "core value."

"It's connection to the earth by working with and learning from the functions of ecological relationships. We seek to promote diversity on our farm and connection to community," Winkler said.

That is not to say, of course, that larger farms aren't community-driven and stewards of the land, but it is a defining feature of small farms, often with a single farmer working the fields and selling the produce.

Along with her co-farmer Arjenna Strong, the pair employ organic practices, although Muddy Creek is not organic certified.

In many ways, the farms are passion projects that evolve into something more over time.

"It's always a process of creative problem solving in the garden," Winkler said. "It always learning how the system works and trying to bring it into balance."

In addition to the weekly boxes, Muddy Creek Farm produce is sold at Bailey's Local Foods, an online "farmers' market" that operates in uptown Waterloo. Over the course of the summer, Winkler and Strong grow spring greens, peas, beans, tomatoes, green peppers, cabbage, and parsnips and carrots.

'Getting people to know we're here'

Several kilometres away, Josephine McCormick is the eldest of six children, a few of whom are involved with running Fall Harvest, a farm that has been known for its bounty pumpkin and squash.  

Josephine's mother Rosemary started selling pumpkins at the roadside before she was a teenager. That evolved into a full-scale farming operation and a few years ago the family opened a small store and began selling their summer produce. The expansion is catching on with customers, McCormick says.

"With the store, people are finding out more about us, but it is taking time. That's with any kind of business that has expanded. People know us for the fall, but with summer produce, it is getting people to know that we're here and the crops," McCormick said.

When I visited one Tuesday morning, there were several customers in the small store: her brother Marshall worked the cash; I bought a jar of honey that her other brother, Mason, makes.

When it comes to beef, pork and chicken, Two Calves Standing in Baden is a 12-acre farm that has a Red Wattle heritage pig program as one of its unique features. Farmer-owner Bryan Izzard visits the Stratford Sunday Market and sells his products online.

Customers want healthy, local food

In Paris, farmer Dave Rogers made the leap from cooking as a professional chef to working 30 acres of land on his small farm to raise beef, pork and laying hens four years ago.

He has 18 head of cattle and raises Black Angus, Hereford and Speckle Park naturally on grass. The approach is driven by what his customers at six farmers' markets — including Kitchener Market — want.

"They're looking for a healthy food source, to connect with their farmer and eat local," Rogers said, calling his farm "regenerative."

What is regenerative farming?

In St. George, in Brant County south of Waterloo region, Alexandra Powell operates Alexandra's Farm on a quarter acre of land that she alone works to create a farm ecosystem that she calls "the great soil food-web poop-loop."

"I use regenerative farming practices that feed soil life, including bacteria, fungi and insects. This soil food-web interaction recycles nutrients allowing plants to grow and thrive, while creating healthier, better tasting crops and soil that are more resilient to climate change," Powell said.

She sells produce such as lettuces, tomatoes, chard, beans, cucumbers, and watermelon and cantaloupe at the Friday Hespeler Market.

"This is the best time of the year for crops," she said, adding that drier conditions have not had an impact. "I've grown more produce this year than since I started four years ago."

That likely has something to do with very good soil. Like Muddy Creek Farm, Alexandra's Farm focuses on the health of the soil feeding it the nutrients it needs to become the ecosystem that in turn feeds the growing crops.

There are other similar smaller farms that have carved out a niche for themselves, including Vibrant Farms and Wayward Farm in Baden, Fertile Ground Farm in St. Agatha and Brookfront Farms Grass-fed Beef of New Dundee.

Each farm offers something slightly different to customers — there are many more that I could have included — partly in keeping with their approach to diverse crops and partly for their business model, whether it's on-farm meditation classes, grass-feed beef, heritage breeds, notes on carbon sequestration, farm tours or holiday-season markets long after the harvest is done. 

People feel need to connect

I think the common thread they share is satisfying a customer's need to "connect" on some level. But at the end of the farming day, while small farms strive for sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices, they also have to evaluate their own sustainability and how, and if, they can grow their businesses, according to Winkler.

"There's a lot of investment both in infrastructure as well as time and energy, and so making that return (on investment) is probably the most challenging aspect," Winkler said, adding that as the season ends they will consider next steps.

Until then, the crops, the produce boxes, volunteer opportunities and the weekly on-farm mindfulness classes are the focus at Muddy Creek, which means people interacting and sharing experiences, she says.

"I think it's an answer to a need for connection with nature with more and more of us living in cities. Especially after the last two years, people are looking for ways to look after their mental health and physical health."