Every week during the growing season, my husband and I cart our family’s grassfed meats to market. We sell pork chops for $11 a pound; ground beef goes for [...]]]> Shannon Hayes: Why are my prices higher than those at the super market? Glad you asked.

Every week during the growing season, my husband and I cart our family’s grassfed meats to market. We sell pork chops for $11 a pound; ground beef goes for $7.50.

Every week, we meet someone who tells us the prices are too high.

In fact, at those prices, the average net income for our family members has maxed out at $10 per hour. But part of our job is to hold our chins up and accept weekly admonishment for our inability to produce food as cheaply as it

can be found in the grocery store.

The truth is, food in the grocery store is not cheap. We pay for it in advance with our tax dollars, which support farm subsidies that go to support an ecologically problematic industrialized food system. We pay for it with the lives of our soldiers and with the unfathomable military expenditures that support our national reliance on fossil fuels, upon which the industrial farming model is completely dependent. The prices only look cheap because we are paying for them someplace else: through our taxes, and via the destruction of our soil, water, and natural resources through irresponsible farming practices.

The viability of a small farm is dependent not just on garnering a living wage, but on our ability to steward our land in a way that allows it to stay healthy and productive into the future. Industrial food production, in contrast, currently depends on farm subsidies—and on a license to deplete soils and pollute water for immediate profit with no regard for what happens tomorrow. This is our nation’s cheap food policy: Make the food in the grocery store as inexpensive as possible, so that we can justify lower working wages for Americans.

To read more click here…

A unique herd of cattle south of Ottawa could be headed to the slaughterhouse because their owner is set to retire.

Greely, Ont., farmer Bruce Straby has bred “cottontail” cows, who have white, fluffy, wider-than-average tails, for the past 20 years.

Straby is [...]]]>

Posted: Jan 30, 2012 8:22 AM ET

Bruce Straby is looking to sell his herd of cottontail cows by the spring. (Hallie Cotnam/CBC)

A unique herd of cattle south of Ottawa could be headed to the slaughterhouse because their owner is set to retire.

Greely, Ont., farmer Bruce Straby has bred “cottontail” cows, who have white, fluffy, wider-than-average tails, for the past 20 years.

Straby is a retired chemist and part-time beef farmer. He said it is time to move on from his hobby, but he wants someone else to carry on the legacy with the unique animals.

“Sooner or later, I’m going to find the family that I need,” he told the CBC’s Hallie Cotnam, “the family that I want.”

Straby has already sold his land and he now has until the spring to find someone to buy the cows.

“It’s fun, nobody else can do it. Just because, like Everest, just because it’s there, just because nobody else had them,” Straby said.

The selective breeding of cottontail cows began with a mutation in one of the calves.

Now Straby wants to find a farming family who would buy the cows and establish them as an official breed.

In the next ten years [...]]]> By: Emily Van Halem

Looking for a job? Check your local classifieds and you’ll find that many types of ads abound. But have you ever seen a “Farmers Wanted” ad? I haven’t. Nevertheless, the agricultural sector in Canada is in desperate need of help.

In the next ten years 75% of existing farmers are going to reach retirement age with few prospects of replacement. Pause to ponder the gravity of this situation. Who will grow our food? Will we become totally dependent on industrial farms and imported food? Are we comfortable with relying on imported labour? What do these things mean for food prices and quality? What implications do they have for the social and economic fabric of rural communities?

Leave it to young people to face these questions head on. Despite an aging farmer population and uncertain finances, there is a small but steadily growing number of young farmers who have the courage, dedication, passion and ingenuity to turn conventional farming on its head and are making a go at it in new and exciting ways. Who are they and how are they doing it?

To read the full article: click here.

The proposed Ontario Goat marketing board would seek the authority to collect check-off fees on all goats sold for meat in Ontario and all goat milk sold in Ontario. This would include all goats and/or milk sold by producers even [...]]]> Ontario Goat would like to pursue marketing board status under the Farm Products Marketing Act (FPMA).

Building Local Organic Value Chains Using Co-operative Structural Models
- 12pm – 4:30pm, Jan 26th, 2012 at the Guelph Organic Conference, Room UC103

Presented by the Ontario Natural Food Co-op and Local Organic Food Co-op Network

In light of the U.N.’s recognition of 2012 as the International Year of the Co-operative, this [...]]]>

Building Local Organic Value Chains Using Co-operative Structural Models
- 12pm – 4:30pm, Jan 26^th, 2012 at the Guelph Organic Conference, Room UC103

Presented by the Ontario Natural Food Co-op and Local Organic Food Co-op Network

In light of the U.N.’s recognition of 2012 as the International Year of the Co-operative, this session explores the valuable role of co-operatives as a successful business model for creating resilient local and organic supply chains, drawing upon the expertise of a diversity of food and farming co-operators working at many different scales across Ontario.  Highlights of the afternoon including a collaborative discussion of several models of small and midscale values-based supply chains, information sharing from the province’s nascent food co-operative network, and a panel composed of five unique co-ops working at all levels of the food chain.

Planting a Seed: Organic Co-ops – Secrets of marketing and management
- Saturday Jan. 28, 9:30-10:30am

Presented by ONFC’s Randy Whitteker and The Big Carrot’s Patrick Conner

Introduction to Co-operatives for Young Farmers - Sunday Jan. 29, 9:30am-12:45pm

Hosted by the Organic Council of Ontario Youth Stream

And visit the Co-op Lounge up the stairs from the ONFC booth to learn more about Ontario’s co-op food movement, sip fair trade organic co-op coffee, and pick up a coupon for an organic co-op snack.

Employment Opportunity at Everdale

Everdale is seeking to hire an assistant farmer wishing to gain experience in organic farm management and to improve their farming skills and knowledge.  The contact begins on April 9, 2012 and runs until Dec 31, 2012, with the possibility that the position becomes permanent.

Everdale is a registered non-profit educational farm [...]]]>

Employment Opportunity at Everdale

Everdale is seeking to hire an assistant farmer wishing to gain experience in organic farm management and to improve their farming skills and knowledge.  The contact begins on April 9, 2012 and runs until Dec 31, 2012, with the possibility that the position becomes permanent.

Everdale is a registered non-profit educational farm and learning centre.  That means that Everdale is not owned by a person or shareholders, it is “owned by an idea”.  The idea is:

 To be a teaching farm that provides hands-on, solution-based food and farming education to build and engage healthy local communities.

To find out more, visit http://everdale.org/get-involved/jobs/

Toronto and Region Conservation (TRCA) is soliciting proposals from individuals and community organizations that are interested in establishing a sustainable urban agriculture operation at Black Creek Pioneer Village (BCPV), 4929 Jane Street, City of Toronto, Ontario M3N 2K8.  Eight acres of TRCA-owned land, farm house and barn are available for lease. 

Have you wondered what is happening at McVean Farm? Meet some of our farmers in this short video by Bart Danko

View Video : McVean Farm in Brampton

The New Farmers Incubator Program supports new farm enterprises by offering access to land, equipment and infrastructure at reasonable rates, along with business planning support, technical [...]]]>

Have you wondered what is happening at McVean Farm? Meet some of our farmers in this short video by Bart Danko

View Video : McVean Farm in Brampton

The New Farmers Incubator Program supports new farm enterprises by offering access to land, equipment and infrastructure at reasonable rates, along with business planning support, technical training, mentorship and experience with ecological and emerging farming methods.

How does it work?

Participants accepted into the program are involved in a tiered system of support that begins with Test Croppers and Start-Up Farms followed by Enterprise Farms and Mentor Farms. The program features greater support to enterprises during the early stage of development and phased out support as enterprise matures.

For more information on the McVean Farm visit:  http://www.farmstart.ca/mcveanfarm/