A Leg Up In Agriculture

In my personal life as well as on social media, I’ve been spending more time lately chatting about my privilege in agriculture. In this instance, I’m not specifically talking about the unfair societal privilege I hold being a white and white appearing woman (I’m also proudly Cree) but for the sake of this post I’m going to focus on the leg up I had starting my farm.

I don’t think we talk about this type of thing enough and the further along I make it in this journey and as I’ve jumped into the education space helping other farmers grow their businesses, through Marketing For Farmers, transparency in this area of my farm has become even more important.

Now this isn’t to take anything away from how hard I’ve worked… because y’all I have put more blood, sweat, tears, and frankly my personal money into this business than I can explain. But, I’ve also had help.

You see, I’m a first generation farmer who started a farm at 27-years-old in one of the most expensive areas of our country when it comes to land value and pretty much everything else for that matter and that farm I started happened to be in animal agriculture which is arguably one of the most expensive areas that I could have jumped into.

So what help did I have?

First off, when I started Central Park Farms I had a high paying corporate career to help fund some of those initial start up costs. Keep in mind I never thought I would actually open a ‘real’ farm, I thought I was just going to produce some food for my family and sell some extra to my friends and family… boy did that escalate!

(PS, I think all farms are ‘real’ farms but at the time I couldn’t even imagine calling what I was doing, farming because I felt like the furthest thing from a farmer.)

Next up, my new partner Jay was a 5th generation farmer who although retired from farming at the time to focus on his fishing charter company, was a wealth of knowledge and rather conveniently a land owner who’s property was already outfitted with some barns and outbuildings.

And my in-laws-to-be were successful farmers who, having sold their business off years before, allowed me to raid their empty chicken barns for old outdated equipment to outfit my ‘barn’ for my first round of chickens.

When I decided I wanted to try my hand at raising that first batch of chickens I didn’t have to build a space to brood them in, I didn’t have to purchase heaters, or waterers, or feed tins. Instead I was able to simply invest in chicks and feed, and some major sweat equity on my part, but before I knew it, I was a farmer.

Now don’t get me wrong that equipment was retired quick — If there are any chicken farmers in the group I’m talking old automatic bell waterers which are although still in use in many farmers are a far cry from the newer nipple drinkers we run now — but the benefit is I was able to use the profits from that first round to help fund some of the equipment improvements for the next batch.

Then there’s the relationships, having fallen for a guy from a known family in agriculture I’ve also been able to sneak in favours here and there and have been able to be issued credit with suppliers who didn’t know me by using my in-laws accounts and get deals typically reserved for established farmers.

Heck, it’s literally the only reason I’m able to get chickens processed. Without that family relationship I would not be able to obtain the processing I need to be in this business.

Well correction, I guess I technically could but it would be too cost prohibited for my customers and I would only be able to sell whole roaster chickens because the plant I would need to use doesn’t offer breakdown service and would increase my cost per chicken by $6.

That means I would have to charge my community $6 more for each whole chicken I sold.

I don’t say any of these as a weird brag about how lucky I am, I admit what many feel uncomfortable discussing because without sticking my hand up to share these privileges, I worry others will feel like they failed if they weren’t able to secure processing for example or so new farmers go into this industry without feeling like they should compare their journey to another farmer’s because it’s difficult to see the whole picture through the simple squares on Instagram.

My mom is going to read this and tell me I’m selling myself short but that’s okay I know anyone who has followed me as I navigated farming knows I’ve busted my butt… and that I just like to make sure I’m always keeping it real!

Now before I go get back to work, I wanted to share some interesting stats:

Recently the Small Scale Meat Producers Association, with the help of funding from the Provincial and Federal government recently did a detailed survey of BC meat producers and the results were telling. When it comes to smaller scale meat producers here in BC — I fall in this category — 94% supplement income with other work not related to their meat. I also fall into the category of new entrants which make up 40% of meat producers in this category.