Current mood:

sad

Lack of updates...
You may remember from a few weeks ago how I mentioned that my farm was suffering (as are many in this area). Well, we recieved some difficult news from our farmer:

As a farmer who prides himself on providing a beautiful, tasty and bountiful harvest, I find it very difficult to ask customers to accept a financial loss. However, as my Farm Committee stated in a meeting (where I was not present), one of the underpinnings of the Community Supported Agriculture concept is the willingness by members to share in both the bounty and the risk of loss.

That is of course, just a tiny portion of the letter they sent us. I will include the entire thing at the end here, behind a cut.

The other news, which has also been very difficult for them is this:

As if our wetness and soil problems weren't enough of a challenge, we received notice in mid-July that our lease would not be renewed for next year - which means we will no longer be able to be at the location we have farmed for the past five years.

This was, of course, difficult news. Any farming operation is a long-term relationship with a particular soil, and the time and cost of establishing infrastructure is considerable. Over the past 5 years I have built an infrastructure (greenhouse, shed, high plastic tunnels - all of course with the permission of the owner) that has cost a small bundle, and the challenge and cost of relocating is daunting.

Because of all of this, they are seriously downsizing. Next year they will offer a "market" or sorts, once a week, and only 30 CSA shares.

This is, of course, the risk of CSA. The farm has gone into debt this year in order to supplement our baskets with organic produce from other areas of Quebec, as a matter of pride they couldn't give us only what they were able to coax out of the ground. For this, I am very grateful. I think that next year, I will try to be one of those 30 shares.

For those who are interested, here is the full letter:



September 26, 2006

Greetings to all Sharers of Ferme du Zéphyr. The last lengthy letter you received was from Jane Barr the coordinator of the Farm Committee of Ferme du Zéphyr telling you about the weather difficulties of this season. Since that date the Zéphyr farm crew has been very busy trying to coax some more fruit out of the drowned plants as well as planting new seeds in various parts of the farm.

Overall, much of the early plantings simply did not recover after the wet part of the summer. The root systems have already taken a beating and zucchinis, cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, winter squash, eggplants, parsley and celeriac and the various plantings of broccolis, cauliflower etc - are either badly or moderately underproducing.

There are some excellent new plantings of various crops that have come along and will be coming in the weeks ahead: carrots, turnips, radishes, rapini, kale, spinach, baby pac choi , but all in all this crop season has been our worst ever - over 50% of the land area has had significant soil problems.

The financial ramifications for the farm have been major. We do not have crops available for fall/early winter baskets that we were planning to offer. Your farmer has taken a drastically reduced salary, and has borrowed from a family line of credit to pay expenses and provide vegetables to augment the share size.

We are far from being the only farm to have suffered badly this season. You can read a recent article from The Gazette:

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=e4c2c54e-9e66-4fd2-aadc-a6299d4cb003

as well as a letter (in French) from the our agronomist, Anne Weill, who works with the Club Bio-Action, of which I am a member:

http://www.fermeduzephyr.com/en/member/newsletter/20060926-agronomist.php

Also of interest is this account of an Équiterre visit to a small farm in the Townships:

http://www.fermeduzephyr.com/en/member/newsletter/20060926-farmvisit.php

I have recently heard that one of the most experienced farmers who has farmed conventionally and organically for 30 years years has had to cancel some of his baskets and shorten his season. These letters and documents show that for farms with heavy and undrained soil this year's weather has been proven very difficult.

I just received the Partners Letter from Équiterre (Le Partenaire), which also outlines the problems experienced by a number of CSA farms. You will receive this with your basket this week.

SO you may be asking:
How will this affect me as a farm partner?

The share sizes (volume, quality, and occasionally variety) have been smaller than normal this season. We have tried very hard to give you the best possible shares and I applaud my team of interns who through great effort and creativity squeezed the maximum from what we had in the garden. Numerous members have complimented us on the quality and presentation of produce.

I want to thank all the sharers for the understanding and patience shown to us so far this season.

For the past 6 weeks we have augmented your shares with vegetables (1 to 3 varieties per week) purchased directly from other farms and from a wholesaler who obtains certified organic vegetables from Québec farmers. I have done this in order to fill out what I felt would be too meagre shares were we to offer only what we have grown on our own farm.

Now, in late September, we have reached the stage where the variety of vegetables is diminishing in our garden and we have had to make decisions as to how to proceed from here.

I met with the Farm Committee, the group of sharers who advises me on member and farm issues and organizes the volunteers, and together we have formulated a plan of how to proceed from here.

In the spirit of the written agreement that members signed when they sent in their registration we are asking sharers to assume a portion of the risk and misfortune the farm has suffered this season. The farm is asking the sharers to forgo 2 or possibly 3 out of the planned 19 weekly deliveries, i.e. to accept 16 or 17 rather than 19 weeks of deliveries. The bi-weekly sharers would accept 1-2 fewer deliveries.

The farm will continue to augment the basket size and variety with purchased vegetables. We will supply only certified organic vegetables grown in Québec.

This means that our deliveries will continue until the 3rd or 4th weeks of October.

As a farmer who prides himself on providing a beautiful, tasty and bountiful harvest, I find it very difficult to ask customers to accept a financial loss. However, as my Farm Committee stated in a meeting (where I was not present), one of the underpinnings of the Community Supported Agriculture concept is the willingness by members to share in both the bounty and the risk of loss.


Other news:

As if our wetness and soil problems weren't enough of a challenge, we received notice in mid-July that our lease would not be renewed for next year - which means we will no longer be able to be at the location we have farmed for the past five years.

This was, of course, difficult news. Any farming operation is a long-term relationship with a particular soil, and the time and
cost of establishing infrastructure is considerable. Over the past 5 years I have built an infrastructure (greenhouse, shed, high plastic tunnels - all of course with the permission of the owner) that has cost a small bundle, and the challenge and cost of relocating is daunting.

I tried to persuade the landlady to accept our presence for another year to allow a transition to our other farm site up the road - but no dice. This was of course very disappointing and frustrating.

I have spent the past few weeks reflecting on what to do and for a variety of reasons have decided to move the operation to land we have been renting from the Morgan family a kilometer furthur up the Senneville road towards Pierrefonds. I have a long term lease on this land, and the best thing is that it has deep, very well-drained soils that have a wonderful texture for vegetable growing, albeit rocky in a big way. The drainage problems we have encountered at our present site simply don't exist here, and it is possible to begin cultivation much earlier in the season.

Why didn't we move there long ago, you ask?

Maybe I should have, but there is only half the amount of land available at this location, and we had already established some infrastructure at the present location. Moving is not something I was keen on doing. However, as difficulties started to mount at our present location I began to rock pick and prepare the Morgan soils with green manure. This year you received a bountiful pea and garlic harvest from this land.

We have now solved the problems of irrigation and electricity at this location and we will be moving our greenhouse and tunnels in the month of October.

SO - the good news is that despite the effort and challenges, Ferme du Zéphyr will be moving to a new location with a long-term future.


And next year???

Ferme du Zéphyr will be downsizing in a radical way going back to zero so to speak finding its roots. I will be farming much less land and hiring far fewer interns. There are pros and cons to this decision, but the end result will be, on paper at least, that I will have a more efficient and more profitable operation with less stress than in the past and it is hoped that a smaller operation will yield a more consistent yield of better quality vegetables.

The farm will offer a weekly market at the Coop Maison Verte in NDG on Thursdays so that former Zéphyr and Coop members can buy direct from their farmer the produce that is available. The farm will offer a CSA that will be downsized to 30 members. These members (sharers) will receive 20 weeks of vegetables (pre-boxed to guarantee the quantity) and will be able to buy extra produce from the market at a reduced price.

It is with regret that I announce I will no longer offer a CSA drop-off at the Lakeview United Church in Pointe Claire. I thank those Pointe Claire, Beaconsfield, Dorval, and Baie d'Urfé residents who faithfully supported our summer and winter share program in Pointe Claire. Any of my West Island members who would like to continue to be Ferme du Zéphyr sharers are welcome to come to the farm in Senneville on Thursdays, where they will be able to collect their basket from our cold room, or they are of course welcome to pick up their basket in NDG at Coop La Maison Verte, if convenient.

The goal of this small CSA combined with a market is to offer a very high quality share to a few members and to offer to non-members the possibility of buying as much or as little as they want from their farmer's market stand.

The farm plans to expand its spring transplant sales of tomatoes, peppers, and herbs and will slightly expand its present wholesale growing of baby arugula. It is planned that the weekly market will continue to Christmas, if at all possible.

We are now signing up members for the 2007 CSA and the membership will be cut off at 30. Please read the separate sheet outlining how the new CSA will function, which you will receive separately.

This is a lot for you to digest. If you have any comments, suggestions, or complaints please send them to me, fermeduzephyr at videotron dot ca or maclean dot mary dot gmail dot com.


Other News and Questions

Will there be more work bees, and how can I carry through on my obligatory volunteer work at the farm?

Due to the uncertainty of our plans for the farm we have not held any work bees since early August. For the same reason we did not hold our annual Harvest Party.

However, now that our future plans are set we would like to invite those who can, to help us with the fall harvest and clean-up and with various tasks that will establish us at our new location just up the road.

In the coming few weeks myself and the Zéphyr intern team (Mel and Jacques, Shelly and Ben) will be putting a lot of energy into moving the greenhouse, rebuilding a shed and in general moving up the road to the new site. We will absolutely require help with the remaining field harvest. Those able-bodied souls who can come and pull carrots, bunch rapini and radishes etc. are welcomed with open arms. This coming month is going to very challenging for the farm and we could really use your volunteer help. In October there will be a garlic popping party at the Coop as usual and then a late October garlic planting.

We will inform you of solid work bee dates in the next few days.

Best wishes,

Stephen Homer - Ferme du Zéphyr