Canada: The challenge of running a small scale family farm

More demand for locally grown organic produce creates opportunities for small-scale family farms in Canada. Yet, increasing minimum wages and rising energy costs also make it a challenging adventure for some. 

The day to day operations at the organic farm of the Mans family in Coaldale, Alberta, is a good example to illustrate these everyday opportunities and hurdles. 

While being an open field grower first and foremost, the Mans family added organic greenhouse production a few years ago, and have become a successful year round supplier of fresh organic produce to their local community. 

Andrew Mans, in charge of the greenhouse operations at his family farm, confirms the popularity for local organics is growing. Inside their 1-acre greenhouse they grow organic bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplants. They market their produce to specialty stores in Edmonton and Calgary via Galimax, a local trading company from Lethbridge.

According to Mans, there is a lot of room for his products on the market. "But we are not expanding and increasing our production to meet that demand. We are now already bigger than we had imagined ourselves. We like to stay small, we are not here to be huge, but to grow a good product."

And that size gives them some advantages. "We grow and sell for the local market, we are fully independent as we do not serve any big stores or large retail chains. This also means that we can listen to our customers and have a close connection with them. It also enables us to be flexible and grow a lot of different varieties in all sizes and sorts. That is definitely a bonus."

Another major advantage of the small size of the Mans family farm is the ease of management. "Our current size allows me to manage the greenhouse by myself. As well as this, it creates variety for our employees; they are not doing the same work the whole day but alternate between different tasks and crops." 

Andrew explained that Mans' employs mainly local workers. They have a year-round working scheme, in which they can work in the greenhouse on the vine crops, on the open field and in the packing house. Being small means that they need to provide work for their full-time employees on a year-round scheme.

"Up to now we have always been able to manage with local people, even though we had some full timers leave recently. Finding the right workers can be difficult, especially when you are too small to join the foreign worker program. By saying too small I mean that it is very costly for us to use this program for only a couple of foreign workers."

Also the increasing minimum wages makes it a challenge for many small-scale Canadian farmers to control their labour costs. "Minimum wages increase, and especially school students get too expensive for us. Therefore it is important to work as efficiently as possible and use good and skilled workers. They cost more, but can be more efficient too."

Increasing the efficiency of their small farm therefore remains a key topic for Mans. Not only labour-wise, but also production-wise. "Ever since we started we learned a lot and our efficiency has increased. We know a lot more about using the right varieties, and have learned a lot more bugwise too."

Mans grows according to Canadian organic standards; directly in the soil, using a lot of predatory mites and bugs to control pests and diseases. They learned to cope with common diseases like powdery mildew, late blight and botrytis. "All full biological control, no natural sprays or soaps have been used against pest over the last 3 years. They often interfere with the beneficials so it is 100% bugs and beneficials for us."

Growing in the soil means that the grower has to optimize his nutrient and irrigation scheme into detail. They are using Damatex control systems to do so. The soil they are growing on was already in used for open field cultivation of organic vegetables. "We built a greenhouse over this good ground and started growing from there. For us growing in the soil is the way to go, you have no nutrient issues and we achieve good quality and yields."

Commenting on the current hydroponic organics debate, Mans says that the Canadian rules are very clear. "Unlike in the U.S., Canadian organic growers have to abstain from hydroponic production. That is simply the way organics are defined in Canada. I think it's the right bar, but I am not saying that hydroponics are wrong or right. I mean, I love aquaponics, it is brilliant. However, I think we should just keep it like it is."

Something that Mans and many of his peers would like to see change are the new rules and regulation in regards to Alberta's 'climate leadership' carbon tax program. He explained that their energy cost is worrisome; "while the rebate program in Alberta will offset some of the direct cost of the carbon tax there is still a cost impact on the industry as a whole." The government also offers some relief in the form of funding energy efficiency investment programs such as Growing Forward 2. "There is money available for installing things like LEDs, but that funding is only a drop in the bucket."

The Alberta climate is known for its extreme temperatures, which can get as low as -35 degrees Celsius in Winter and as high as 40 degrees in the summer. In order to increase their energy efficiency, Mans organics recently started to work with consultants from 360Energy. They also installed LEDs from Lumigrow and Fluence in order to boost their greenhouse production in the darker seasons. 

"Some people think that an organic greenhouse is a goldmine. Well, yes, the prices are good, but the cost of production is also higher than open field. It is a good business, but the margins are tight, you really need to find the right balance and learn how to run it. Scaling up for many is a way to become more profitable, but that is not the ambition we have. The catch is that we are a small grower, people know who we are and therefore they like to buy from us. I think this is the way to go, and we do not see ourselves getting much bigger than this over the next ten years."