Colleen Ross’ farm shouldn’t really exist, by the standards of Agriculture Canada.  It’s too small and it doesn’t fit the industrialized agricultural norm.  Meanwhile, this southern Ontario mixed farm quietly produces many tonnes a year of food, sustains Colleen’s family and many others, employs up to nine people, and adds to the health of the land and consumers.  Colleen and her husband, John Weatherhead, turn out large crops of organic tomatoes, peppers, and other vegetables, organic lamb and grass-fed beef, and grains and pulses such as rye and soybeans.  They do it without pesticides or antibiotics, with no external fertilizers and no genetic engineering, relying solely on natural manure, a healthy farm environment, and their years of expertise.

I had wanted to visit Colleen after having heard so much about her national and international work to promote sustainable farming.  Long active in the National Farmers’ Union, Colleen is first vice-president of that organization, and speaks widely on topics related to food and agriculture.  Colleen was in Japan from mid-October to early November of 2010, attending a United Nations biodiversity meeting as part of an international delegation opposing genetic engineering of foodstuffs and the patenting of life forms by agribusiness.  But by mid-November, Colleen was home cleaning up the farm after harvest, which was an opportunity for my husband and me to experience Colleen’s farm Waratah Downs.  About 100 kms south of Ottawa, the farm is named after a hardy flower native to Australia where John was born and where he and Colleen previously farmed.  John comes from generations of farmers and has been working the land his entire life, according to Colleen.  “He is key to the success of our farm.  Without him I could not do what I do.”  Farming for food security is co-operative team work, for a family and for a community.

The weather was cool and the ground muddy, so Colleen loaned us some sturdy gumboots for a look around.  Cows and sheep trotted in and out of the open barns, and chickens pecked freely around the grounds.  In the packing shed, we saw piles of homegrown hay for the livestock, and boxes of green and red peppers left over from the previous weekend’s final farmers’ market of the season.  The peppers had a few gashes and bruises, but plenty of remaining good food as far as Colleen was concerned.  Over the next few days, she planned to forage through the boxes for every last morsel.  “I dehydrate.  I ferment.  I freeze.  I do canning.  I’m into food preservation for my own personal food security,” she said.  “You’ve got to practise food sovereignty.”  A central idea in current food movements, ‘food sovereignty’ promotes people’s capacity to define and organize their own food and farming systems rather than having these controlled by global market forces and by agribusiness.

Colleen’s farm illustrates how much food can be created on small, well-run organic farms.  It challenges the widespread belief that small-scale farming is inefficient, and supports recent studies questioning the ‘efficiency’ of large-scale industrial agriculture.  In countries around the world, when you measure the total amount of food produced rather than simply one crop, small farms are often more productive.  Evidence for this was outlined back in 1999 by food expert Peter Rosset,[i] who showed that small agricultural operations can produce as much as 10 times more output per unit area.  They can do so with little nothing in the way of pesticides and fertilizers, which use fossil fuels, can poison the environment, and are costly.

Meanwhile, Colleen’s 200-acre farm yields up to 60 tonnes of soybeans on 60 acres or less; more than a tonne to the acre of grains such as rye; 40 different species of vegetables, 2-8 varieties of each; and tomatoes, especially diverse, at 8-10 different types.  Colleen and her crew produce enough vegetables for hundreds of families each summer, and meat for many families each winter, along with copious food for Colleen and John and their three children.  Their two oldest, Jessica and Melanie, are out on their own with university degrees and a variety of interests, and their youngest, Isaac, is studying at college.  Colleen figures the whole family will continue to be somehow involved in farming.  “It’s in their genes.”

In an upcoming post, a few of Colleen’s observations on how we can develop more sustainable food systems.

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[i] Rosset,P. (1999) The Multiple Functions and Benefits of Small Farm Agriculture.  Policy Brief #4.  Oakland: Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First.

What they do at Mount Sentinel Ranch is what traditional cattle ranchers do.  As Francis Gardner puts it: “We convert cellulose into beef.”   But there’s a big difference between conventional beef production, and beef production as practiced by Mr. Gardner and his family on their sprawling southern Alberta land.  The Gardners use no hormones or antibiotics on the animals, and no chemical fertilizers or herbicides on the land.  They graze their few hundred cattle on native rangeland to produce organic beef.   That’s in contrast to the vast majority of beef producers in Canada, who rely on industrial feedlots to fatten their cattle on grain with heavy use of hormones and antibiotics.

I had the opportunity to visit with the Gardner family this past summer when I drove to their ranch in the rolling foothills southwest of Calgary.  It was a privilege to meet Francis Gardner, his wife Bonnie and daughter Sarah, along with neighbour Gordon Cartwright who dropped over to join the conversation.  It was inspiring to meet people who have such thoughtful observations on industrial food systems and who believe that livestock production needs to be done in harmony with the natural environment.

Stewardship of the land is the point for the Gardners.  Mount Sentinel Ranch has been operating for 112 years, since 1898 when the property was purchased by Francis Gardner’s grandfather.  A young man just out of the navy, he got a job at High River, rode the country by horseback, and found this stunning acreage.  Today it reminds the Gardners of past and future generations.  That’s why it’s certified organic and that’s why they only graze the relatively small number of cattle that can be sustainably supported by the grassy ground cover.  Some people have thought them foolish for that decision.  But though large-scale industrial operators claim to be feeding the world, they’re doing it in a way that the Gardners believe can’t survive for another 100 years.

Mount Sentinel Ranch produces beef in a way that is designed to survive.  At the heart of their work is the complex business of grassland management.  It involves assessing the carrying capacity of the land, to determine the number of cattle that can graze each acre without degrading the fundamentals of the plant material and soil.  In the words of Mr. Gardner: “You’re trying to minimize your impact on the land.”

Mount Sentinel keeps a full-time herd of 250-300 cows.  Their calves graze for about a year and a half to beef up to 900-950 pounds at which weight they can be slaughtered for food, or fattened a little extra in natural feedlots.  Then the meat gets sold as organic beef, under the label Diamond Willow, mostly in Vancouver and elsewhere on the west coast.  Organic producers receive a premium for their beef compared with conventional meat.   But the main reason to produce organically is “knowing you’re doing the right thing for the land you stand on,” Mr. Gardner says.

The basis of southern Alberta grazing land is ‘rough fescue,’ a grassy ground cover that inspires a kind of reverence.  The stand is a complex array of dozens of species of grasses, hardy and diverse, with deep roots and an ability to tolerate extreme and varied weather conditions including fire, droughts, heat and cold.   Buffalo and other livestock have been sustained by this grassland for thousands of years.  There’s still rough fescue on the higher hills and ranges, land which the Gardners and some of their neighbours are trying to protect from excessive oil and gas infrastructure.  Through an organization called the Pekisko Group, they’re attempting to ensure that oil and gas development doesn’t destroy watersheds, ranching communities, or recreational and scenic areas.  They call it shortsighted to construct oil roads and lengthy pipelines in pristine foothills territory, and disrupt important natural watersheds and ecosystems.  “We’re trying to get some 100-year thinking going here,” says Mr. Gardner.

Neighbourhood rancher Gordon Cartwright, vocal and articulate on these issues, suggests that ranchers, farmers, and others need to consider not only alleged benefits of large-scale industry but also liabilities including land degradation.  “We’re living on borrowed time,” he says.

These ranchers think deeply about sustainable food production, and cite some of their latest readings on topics of food production and ecology.  In the couple of hours we had together in the Gardners’ country kitchen, Francis, Gordon, and Bonnie quoted from books including A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright, The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, books by American conservationst Louis Bromfield, and publications from Lester Brown’s Worldwatch Institute.  Widely-read and experienced on the ground, they say the industrial food model is short-sighted.  Viewing the natural world solely as a resource, high-volume, high-tech food systems are dependent on fossil fuels, and use land, water, and other resources without considering the consequences.  To this there are “profound political implications,” says Mr. Cartwright, as documented in other jurisdictions.  In numerous countries, small farmers have been run off the land to accommodate industrial agriculture.  Former farmers are forced to move to the city for jobs that often don’t exist.  Then their governments overextend, can’t pay their bills, then can’t grow their own food.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government is allowing industrial producers to dominate the beef industry.  In the current system, large companies such as Cargill not only own packing plants but also feedlots, employing the vertical integration that is common in several meat sectors.  Cargill is therefore able to elbow small producers out of the market by preferentially supplying its packing plants with beef from its own feedlot operations.

The Gardners are holding out for a different way of making beef and for a food system that produces food for local control and environmental sustainability.  To support the Gardners, and producers like them, you can buy organic meat.  In B.C. and parts of Alberta, you can find Diamond Willow organic beef, fresh or frozen, in more than 100 Overwaitea stores including Save-On-Foods, Urban Fare, and others.