Through our years of farming, much has changed. Our farms now reliably provide us with an income. Each of our farms has seasonal staff and/or WWOOFers and apprentices, so our farming community continues to grow. Several times each season we are reminded of the many friendships and allegiances we’ve built over the years. Surprise visits at the market and e-mails from across the miles trigger fond memories and make us realize how much impact our little business has had. Not only are we better at what we do, but just as importantly, our soil improves year after year, so our farms are significantly more productive. Our markets expand and we improve the efficiency of Saanich Organics.
However, there are some things that don’t change. Each year, during the busiest season, we still feel overwhelmed and even occasionally question our decision to farm. In spite of our best efforts, we still have crop failures, which remind us of the importance of diversity! Greens ravaged by slugs or flea beetles, or an early frost on our butternut squash is heartbreaking, but because we have twenty-five other crops, it doesn’t take long before the disaster becomes yet another funny story.
When we talked about why we are still so deeply committed to farming, each of us kept returning to this question: what we would do if we weren’t farming?
Rachel: What else would I do? What other work could I find that could be so fulfilling, that would both satisfy and reward me?
Robin: My work is tangible. Other people think farmers are at the mercy of forces they can’t control, but I feel otherwise. I can see my crops, I can decide what has to be done, and I’m my own boss. Doing physical work is therapeutic. Farming is sometimes physically exhausting, but I find it mentally invigorating. I don’t play music, I don’t paint, I don’t scrapbook. My creativity is my farm.
Heather: What am I going to do, put on nylons and go to an office? That just doesn’t feel like an option anymore.
For Rachel and Heather, farming is closely tied to how they want to raise their children. Both of them often wish that they had more time with their kids, that they weren’t always so rushed, and had more time for music, crafts, or other activities. However, they both love that their kids can engage with them in meaningful, practical work and that they don’t have to choose between being a stay-at-home mom or a working mom with children in daycare.
Our farms are financially successful by our own estimation, and certainly compared with national statistics of farming incomes. However, making a full-time living from farming continues to be a challenge. In writing this book, we kept returning to questions of finances. All three of us have been somewhat surprised to discover in ourselves an entrepreneurial spirit. We each have a drive to make money, but continue to find that we don’t make as much as we feel we deserve for the amount of work we put in.
Acknowledging our entrepreneurial drive has been complicated for each of us. We all see huge problems with our capitalist, consumerist culture and each of us values many things (environment, social justice, family, friends) above money. We see that in many industries, money is made at the expense of the environment. Compensation for labour is not the norm in our culture. Professional athletes make millions for entertaining us, while those who grow the food we all need for our survival are paid less than minimum wage. Even within agriculture, there is a paradox: large farms are considered valuable and small farms insignificant, or “hobbies,” but small farms actually produce more food and make more money per acre. Small farms create more jobs and are generally more ecologically sound. It’s time that their value was recognized.
Robin: I bought into the fallacy that I wasn’t deserving of money. I used to believe that if I loved what I was doing, I shouldn’t get paid for it. Work is work, and fun is fun. If you’re farming because it’s your love, you shouldn’t be making a living.
Rachel: When I started farming, I didn’t need to make much money, and I didn’t. Later, when I started setting financial goals, I started reaching them.
Heather: I get angry when people talk about the difficulty of making money farming and then say, “But it’s a lifestyle decision,” as if that explains away or excuses our culture’s neglect of the needs of those who feed us. Working for an oil company or becoming a doctor are also “lifestyle decisions” and no one expects those people to work for free.
Whatever our thoughts about our money-obsessed, consumer culture, the fact remains that we both need and deserve to be paid for our work. There is no earthly reason why farmers should have to hold off-farm jobs to “support the farming habit,” as a neighbour says.
Work, play, and home are all melded together in the life of a farmer. Our lives are not compartmentalized; we don’t leave our work at the office. It’s not unusual to walk in on Heather in the kitchen, feeding her children while freezing berries for the winter boxes and taking a call from a chef. This is both a blessing and a curse; sometimes the inescapable nature of our work is overwhelming. However, most days the work is so much of who we are that we can’t distance ourselves from it. This holistic approach to life is something that we’ve all brought to the business of Saanich Organics. Our work brings us fun, companionship, support, exercise, renewal, and inspiration, so we don’t have to seek those elements elsewhere; the fact that we don’t often have time for recreation or entertainment isn’t such a hardship. All our parties may include some business talk, but often our work together feels a bit like a party.
Each November we have a Saanich Organics year-end party. We prepare a feast with food we have grown, and share it with everyone who has been involved with the business that year and their families (employees, contractors, farmers who have sold with us). The last several years, chefs we work with have generously donated their time to prepare this meal. The menu usually looks something like this:
Green salad
Celeriac salad
Roasted beets
Carrot/parsnip soup
Cabbage, black bean, tomato, and corn salad
Chicken we raised
Wild, locally caught salmon
Roasted butternut squash
Local bread with basil/sundried tomato pâté
Butternut squash/brandy pie
Apple pie
We have a very deep feeling of satisfaction and pride, standing in a house full of good friends and looking at all the food that we produced—from seed to plate. Late at night, after one such gathering we received this e-mail from our dear friend and farmhand, Karen:
“hey women i was thinkin of you all as i drove home along that long and windy road and here is what i was thinkin it was amazing tonight to see all the people that you have brought together through your business very cool and i just wanted to take a moment to make sure you take a moment to feel good about such a crowd i was talking to rachel later in the evening talking how amazing it is to have so many young farmers in this community . . . so many more than when rachel first started here and this is no coincidence you are part of this . . . if you look around the room so many of these people are here and farming becuz of your support and openness and encouragement not to mention land and tools so i just wanted to pass along appreciations for you all i’m lucky to have hooked up with you and hope to continue in the next season to work together and if you ever felt like you weren’t an activist . . . inspiring young farmers and creating opportunities for fair wage, support and land is as cuttin edge as it gets yeah to on-farm activism and thanks for another season of timez with you and your dogs and your kids and your soil.”
Writing All the Dirt has been satisfying for all of us. We’ve enjoyed remembering our first years, and each winter, our work on this book has sparked our enthusiasm for the next spring planting season. We’ve come to know each other better and have had a chance to reflect on how, and more importantly why, we farm. We hope you’ve enjoyed our stories and learned a bit from our experiences. If you do decide to find a piece of land and plant some seeds, we wish you success, however you define it. We hope that your crops will grow, that you will nurture your soil and yourself, and that you will be able to build a strong, supportive community around you.