Bas Melissant always wanted to live in the United States or Canada because they were larger and offered more possibilities. In the early 90's, he and his wife Marina visited Alberta. "I loved the idea of farming here right away, but my wife preferred to stay in the Netherlands until we came with the whole family in the summer of 2010. Everyone was so excited that we immediately started the lengthy immigration process," he explains. Since July 2012, they live in Norwich, Ontario, near Lake Erie, where Bas runs the onion production company MEN's Farming Inc. "In this area live many other Dutch immigrants because of their religious background. This helped our family enormously to settle in."
Living and working in another world
The family lives among the Amish, who have been there for generations, living and working in a humble way. They are mostly farmers with mixed companies, woodworkers and craftsmen. They have large families, and many girls work at MEN's Farming Inc., helping with the planting, sorting and packing of onions.
They have that good old fashioned mentality, which you can often still find at most Zeeland onion processing companies; that dutiful attitude which also characterised our people in earlier times.
Preparing the land with Kopeg.
Bas has always enjoyed growing onions and trading with them on a large scale. Again and again, he has looked for new challenges and tried to go ahead with new developments. With such a market-oriented approach, you can get as many customers in the Netherlands as you wish, but in Canada and the United States it is not that easy. It takes longer to prove yourself, and your customers must perceive great value in you before they decide to establish long-term relationships. Reliability plays a much bigger role than just receiving the best price/terms.
"You have to learn again in a new country, or perhaps unlearn everything in my case." A dairy farmer from the neighbourhood recently told me: "Only the colour of the milk is the same here as in the Netherlands. For the rest, everything is different. This also applies to the cultivation and trade of onions."Specialty onions
On the sandy soils on the edge of Lake Erie, you can grow anything and have sufficient water, although you need to harvest, process, pack and sell the product yourself. The opportunities to outsource business here, according to Bas, are scarce. "We have most of the machines brought from the Netherlands, and in this sense we are gradually expanding every year. This way, after three seasons, we have established an onion growing and packing business which is small under Dutch standards. We also grow shallots, red onions, picklers (pearl onions) and cippolinis (mild onions) on several of our own plots and also on rented land.
All work is done under our supervision.
Bas works closely with Herman Visscher, who has been with MEN's Farming from the start. He is a skilled manager of Dutch origin who handles a lot of the paperwork for Bas. The three eldest sons of Bas and Marina also help after school and during the holidays.
After the harvest, the onions are stored in crates. After it is sold, the product is sorted and packed and then shipped to the customer. Many of the onions go to clients at the Food Terminal in Toronto, as well as to New York, Pennsylvania and Montreal. The big cities have large Asian, Indian and Chinese communities, who use onions in almost all dishes. "It is a great challenge to grow good quality products and then find good customers for them. You have to spend a lot of time and attention, and you also must be able to deal with adversities."
White oearl onions ready for packing.
Self-supported
Bas explains he is in contact with the Netherlands on a weekly basis. He affirms that the passion and solution-oriented mentality of Dutch entrepreneurs is unrivalled by any other nation. To build cold storage facilities, he consequently obtains all necessary information from the Netherlands. "A relaxed approach is usually difficult to accept for us, but the good thing about Canada and its people is that if you're not under too much pressure, life here is fantastic."
He states that Dutch entrepreneurs in the area do almost everything really well, although Canadians are usually more self-supported. "They do not need anyone to handle their affairs, although you should not rely too much on them. In the beginning, that was quite difficult for me, because in the Netherlands, as a manager, I used to rely on others for things that I couldn't do myself.
Family
Despite the hard work, the Melissant family spends more time together in Canada. "Immigrants are forced to work together with their whole families to build a new life; that creates a bond and other people and things take second place," he explains. "We simply have to rely more on each other than in the Netherlands. We live nearby a hilly area with woods and water, and the boys love going fishing and hunting. We greatly enjoy the peace and freedom. Besides that, there is little time for hobbies. This summer we hope to go camping in the Lake District in northern Ontario. That should be something special, to go fly fishing and keep an eye out for bears."