{"id":6092,"date":"2020-04-04T13:36:06","date_gmt":"2020-04-04T17:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=6092"},"modified":"2020-07-26T13:57:15","modified_gmt":"2020-07-26T17:57:15","slug":"anne-sam-market-farmers-on-cortes-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/anne-sam-market-farmers-on-cortes-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Anne & Sam: Market Farmers On Cortes Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

By De Clarke<\/p>\n

Podcast: Interview with Anne Dzakovic and Sam Gibb about their life as market farmers on Cortes Island.<\/p>\n

Congratulations to Anne and Sam on the safe and successful birth of their second child, Graciella!\u00a0 Just prior to their departure from Cortes Island to await her arrival on the big island, I had the pleasure of\u00a0 interviewing Sam and Anne at their home on\u00a0Blue Jay Lake Farm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Big Fir Farm<\/h2>\n

Anne and Sam run Big Fir Farm, a small market farm;\u00a0 it\u2019s their primary livelihood, and they sell fresh produce at the Friday Market and through the Co-op.\u00a0 In this interview, I ask them what it\u2019s like being a small market farmer, producing organic local food for a living.\u00a0 How hard is the work?\u00a0 How many hours a week?\u00a0 What kind of crops have they found successful?\u00a0 What kind of planning and logistics do they practise?\u00a0 What advice would they give to other people who feel inspired to support local food systems by becoming producers?<\/p>\n

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Anne & Sam<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n

Sam and Anne tell us how they got into farming, what skills they started with and what kind of learning they did along the way.\u00a0 They explain why starting small makes sense, and how much can be done with small plots (quarter to half acre).\u00a0 They discuss the pros and cons of machinery use, the farmer\u2019s yearly schedule, symbiosis between livestock and vegetable operations, produce prices, time management, and much more.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve ever been interested in farming or gardening for market, and would like to know more about the real experience of small-scale farming on Cortes Island, this interview should be worthwhile listening.\u00a0 If you\u2019re interested in the\u00a0Hundred Mile Diet<\/a>\u00a0and other local food initiatives, the can-do attitude and proven track record of these local food producers should provide encouragement and inspiration.<\/p>\n

The interview was so good that it was very difficult to cut extensive sections to make it fit into the one-hour radio show format.\u00a0 Therefore I\u2019ve edited the cut material into an Extras podcast;\u00a0 if you enjoy the radio show, do check out the Extra Material!<\/p>\n

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In the Extras we go into deeper detail on the logistics of the farmers\u2019 market, the challenge and joy of raising their son on the farm, some tactics that have enabled them to defeat pests without using chemicals, the importance of family time in a farmer\u2019s busy life, and more.\u00a0 Not to mention invaluable advice on what to do when the cows get into your vegetable garden!<\/p>\n

At this somewhat sombre and unsettling moment \u2014 when many of us are uncomfortably aware of our utter dependency on long supply chains and elaborate industrial infrastructure \u2014 Sam and Anne\u2019s six seasons of producing good healthy food for local residents are (for me anyway) a heartening success story about resilience, ingenuity, creativity and right livelihood.<\/p>\n

These are two people who love their work and are learning and becoming better at it with each passing year.\u00a0 As Anne says, \u201cThere\u2019s no Plan B\u2026 it\u2019s hard to think of any reasons why we would want to leave.\u00a0 We\u2019re making money and putting a bit of money in the bank each year, and it\u2019s awesome having a few months off each year and doing a job that fulfills us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam: \u201cIt\u2019s not always fun when you\u2019re doing it;\u00a0 well sometimes it is.\u00a0 But\u2026 when I look at my life and I think about what I do, it\u2019s brilliant. \u201d<\/p>\n

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Sam & Anne at Mansons Friday Market on Cortes Island<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n

Both Sam and Anne believe that there\u2019s room for more market farmers and gardeners to serve Cortes.\u00a0 While the most conventional summer crops are mostly supplied by Big Fir and Linnaea, they feel there are opportunities in shoulder season, extended-season, more unusual crops, and storage crops.\u00a0 There are also underserved markets (like the Saturday Market at Gorge Harbour).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do talk to Linnaea sometimes and just, you know, hang out and be with peers, but we don\u2019t get that very often.\u00a0 So that\u2019s why it would be nice to have more farmers on Cortes, just to have a few more peers that we could throw some ideas around with\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Anne and Sam are grateful for the years of farming experience embodied in their friends and landlords, Henry and Margaret Verschuur.\u00a0 They emphasis the importance of local knowledge and mentorship for young farmers getting started:\u00a0 \u201cTake the advice of the people who are already on the land.\u00a0 Like if you\u2019re sharing, if you\u2019re leasing land from someone who has done some farming and gardening there over a period of years.\u00a0 It can be kind of tempting just to plough ahead and be, like, \u2018No, I know what I\u2019m doing and I\u2019ve got my ideas and I\u2019ve read a few books\u2026\u2019\u00a0 Of course Henry has taught us a lot, and some of the things he\u2019s taught us go against the advice that you would read in a lot of books and experts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anne and Sam offer a lot of reality-based advice for anyone interested in pursuing small market farming as a livelihood.\u00a0 They\u2019ve made it work, and they explain how.\u00a0 I thoroughly enjoyed this interview (local organic food being a subject very dear to my heart) and would like to thank Anne and Sam for graciously welcoming me to their home during the last few days before their pre-partum departure.<\/p>\n

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Another shot at Mansons Market<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By De Clarke Podcast: Interview with Anne Dzakovic and Sam Gibb about their life as market farmers on Cortes Island. Congratulations to Anne and Sam on the safe and successful birth of their second child, Graciella!\u00a0 Just prior to their departure from Cortes Island to await her arrival on the big island, I had the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":6094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[],"radio":[252],"origine":[280,266,231],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6092"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6092"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=6092"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=6092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}