Young Agrarians comes to Saskatchewan!
On December 14th, 45 farmers and food lovers gathered at the amazing Wandering Market in Moose Jaw, SK. People came from far and wide across the province to share their farm stories, make new connections (we hear lots of “hey we’re friends on instagram!”) and we talked about how we can grow the new farmer movement. The event showed the diversity of new farmers from urban microgreen farmers, to market gardeners, to grain farmers, to cattle and goat farmers and more!
Participants did some Farmer Speed Dating and learned about the challenges and successes on each others farms. They talked about their farming heroes and their vision for the food system in Saskatchewan.
Ian King of Northwood Farms put together a great presentation on things to think about when starting out in farming. You can see his full presentation here which includes some great questions to think about like:
- Why do you want to farm?
- What scale do you want to farm at?
- Where can I make this happen?
- Do I need to keep my day job?
- Who can be your partners and supporters?
- What do you want to grow?
We dove into round table discussions let by participants and explored:
- Vermi-composting
- Making biodiesel
- Marketing
- The National Farmers Union
We ended the night with a great potluck, farmer slideshows and even more visiting! Big thank you to everyone that came out on a very, very cold day.
We look forward to the next one! If you are interested in Saskatchewan events contact Dana at prairies@youngagrarians.org and sign up for the YA newsletter here.
Big thank you to Peavey Mart for making this event possible and helping us to grow the network of beginning and new farmers in Saskatchewan!
