FarmStart

The Toronto Star farm series looks at how migrant and immigrant labour gets local produce to market and includes information about FarmStart.

Full Story from The Toronto Star

“Farms near Andrews are selling for $50,000 an acre – the down payment on one of the new homes replacing it in the area. You can rent land for as cheap as $30 an acre, but then there’s still the infrastructure costs for irrigation pipes, seeds, fertilizer, tractors.

FarmStart, a Guelph-area non-profit organization, is launching a program to bridge the gap. It’s already rented 38 acres of land from the Toronto Region Conservation Authority. Starting next year, it will bring aspiring immigrant farmers there for a subsidized, five-year program. They’ll learn about local farm conditions and till small plots with specialty crops from their home countries. They’ll also be linked to established farmers in a mentorship program.

“We have to rethink how we do agriculture in Canada – from a production perspective and an economic perspective,” says Christie Young, FarmStart’s director. “We can learn a lot from farmers from other parts of the world.”

Full Story from The Toronto Star

[tag] FarmStart, New Canadians New Farmers, farming[/tag]