New farmers who have had little or no exposure to agriculture and farming as a business often find it difficult to get up and running. Young Agrarians help match experienced farm mentors with new mentees and help guide them through their growing pains. One such mentee is Pinette Robinson of Fairfolk Farm, near Fort Saskatchewan, AB where she and her husband have started a market gardening business.
With three acres in production, another three in transition to organic certification, and another three acres planted for an apple orchard, the owners of Fairfolk Farm have been methodically scaling up their business since 2022. Robinson, having had early life experience on the farm, moved away and then later in life, had the opportunity to buy land and return to rural living with a market gardening operation. “I just went through the motions of figuring out exactly how I was going to go about doing that and landed on wanting to do market gardening as opposed to ranching and livestock production,” said Robinson.
The Young Agrarians program started in British Columbia in 2014, specifically with the Business Mentorship Network, and has expanded into the Prairie Provinces more recently.
Hearing about the opportunity, Robinson first attended their Business Bootcamp for New Farmers, then applied for the yearlong mentorship program. Young Agrarians match mentors with mentees, based on geographic proximity, as well as business similarity.
Starting in January, and running till after the harvest season, the mentors and mentees meet weekly to discuss subjects related to the business of running a farm. “It centres around the ability to write a business plan. That is the main goal at the end of the project. Each participant is supposed to have a basic draft of a business plan that's shared among the group at the end of the course,” Robinson said about the program. Other areas are also covered like filing taxes, marketing, and recording keeping methods for financial tracking.
The mentorship continues into the growing season, with weekly check-ins and meetings where other mentees share their experiences with each other, as well as tips about the actual cultivation of crops and other general issues that might arise through the summer. Post harvest meetings with the mentors continue into the fall.
Follow-ups may well continue between mentor and mentees if a good relationship is established. “It's lovely because it feels like you've got this whole organization in your court, just trying to push you forward to get where you're trying to go, and it's really quite powerful,” Robinson said.
With the help of her mentor, Robinson has seen a doubling in the farm’s production levels. Plus, with the goal of eventually getting their organic certification, she says it is much easier to achieve if partnered up with another grower who has already gone through the process. The intricacies of the standards that need to be met for organic production can be difficult to navigate if you are new to agriculture. Having an experienced mentor who has gone through it before has helped Robinson find resources and documentation that she did not know she needed to fulfil the process.
One of the biggest barriers for people who want to enter the agriculture sphere is having funds to start up. There is a lot of infrastructure that needs to be in place before a person can even begin to make money. Tactors, storage buildings, seeds, are all needed and a whole lot more. Most funding aid options are aimed at producers that have already been in the game for several years. “A lot of the grants have requirements for having to be producing X amount every year,” Robinson said.
The Young Agrarians also help with matching people to land to buy or lease, and to funding opportunities that they may not have been aware of.
Selling mostly at local farmers markets, fresh produce staples like beans, squash, lettuce mixes and root vegetables, Fairfolk Farm also offers an agritourism opportunity with a rental cabin on-property.
Further into the future Robinson says they want to establish a U-pick with apples, a pumpkin patch and a CSA subscription box program. Having a farm store on site would also be on the list of goals for Fairfolk Farm.
Young Agrarians continue to expand on what they offer new farmers. “[They] just started a course in how to find and employ farm workers, which is something that we'll be getting into probably next year,” Robinson explains. Finding local talent can be challenging in any industry, and seasonal work is no exception. Giving new producers a boost in all areas of farming as a business so that they will want to stay in business is what Young Agrarians is all about!
Value packed with more than 85 opportunities to get educated in agriculture listed in our 2024 Summer Issue, it is worth the read. Subscribe here and get Small Farm Canada delivered straight to your door!