How to Start Farming: An Introductory Course for the Farm Curious features a phenomenal line up of speakers! Learn about how to get more involved in farming from these amazing farmers and food growers.
Want to engage with these speakers? Register for the How to Start Farming course!
Audrey Logan is a Nehiyaw/Métis Knowledge Keeper currently living in Treaty 1 Territory. They founded the Klinic Teaching Garden, a regenerative community garden rooted in Indigenous permaculture principles at 545 Broadway in Winnipeg. They also run Dehydration Nations, a grassroots initiative which hopes to empower individuals and communities to harness the traditional method of food dehydration and pair it with nation-to-nation trade as a way of promoting food sovereignty in Treaty 1 territory and beyond. They are passionate about building a thriving Indigenous permaculture garden from an empty lot, climate adaptation, stewarding rare heritage seeds, traditional perspectives on cross-pollination, urban foraging, and so much more.
Jo Tobias is a Regenerative Soils & Living Compost Specialist with the primary goal of assisting land stewards in understanding how they can play a role in soil health. Jo founded RootShoot Soils in 2015 and has collaborated with British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario farmers. Her direct tool for regenerating degraded landscapes is a well-managed, biodiverse compost. Compost can provide the foundation to kickstart microbial processes that stimulate nutrient cycling and decomposition when managed well.
Composting is Jo’s craft—she meticulously manages the whole process to create the ideal habitat for diverse microorganisms that promote plant health. Over the years, she has taught farmers practical strategies to leverage their biodiverse compost to restore soil life. Jo also combines the power of microscopy with her restoration efforts to ensure that she is on the right path to improving soil health. To find out more about Jo and her company, RootShoot Soils, visit www.rootshootsoils.com.
After many years of either dreaming and scheming or denying and hiding that she wanted to be a farmer, Heather Ramsay accepted a farm apprenticeship at Umi Nami Farm in Sc’ianew territory near Victoria, BC. That was back in 2010. After an extended period as an apprentice/employee, Heather accepted the farm owner’s offer to become a partner in the farm business. She has co-managed the farm for eight years, growing specialty Japanese vegetables as well as several types of fruit and Western produce for primarily direct-market sales. The farm is certified organic and grows year-round
Tristan Banwell manages Spray Creek Ranch, a diversified regenerative organic farm in the Northern St’at’imc Territory near Lillooet, BC. Together with his wife Aubyn, he raises cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry on pasture along the mighty Fraser River in the rain shadow of the Coast Mountains. Operating a growing on-farm abattoir, they direct market their organic meats throughout the Sea-to-Sky region.
Robin Mercy is a mushroom grower based in Kaslo, BC. His farm, Mr. Mercy’s Mushrooms, supplies organic edible and medicinal mushrooms to restaurants, grocers, and herbalists throughout the West Kootenays, and growing supplies and spawn to clients throughout Canada. Robin also teaches about the world of fungi, covering both cultivation techniques and wild foraging and identification.
Thanu of Wild Bee Florals sees the world through many different lenses, one being the intersection of evolutionary biology and informal education. Her passion for growing flowers bloomed naturally alongside her curiosity for learning about ecosystems around us, especially insect biodiversity. Over the past few years, Thanu has grown flowers for market and floral subscriptions in Vancouver and North Vancouver. At the end of 2020, Thanu moved to the Comox Valley to pursue flower farming full time and co-founded Wilder Floral Collective. You can connect with her through Instagram (@wildbeeflorals), Website (www.wildbeeflorals.com) or Email: wildbeeflorals@gmail.com.
I’ve been farming for 25 years. Always with chickens and gardens, sometimes with cattle, usually with bees. Raised my family on homegrown whole foods. My farms have always been off grid, summer only kind of projects. Scaled my pastured poultry at Peregrine Farm for a living the last five years. I like winters by the wood stove, studying and recovering from farming season.
Elderberry Grove was planted in 2017 by two elderberry enthusiasts! Louise & Jed bottle fresh-pressed organic elderberries and provide cuttings so you can enjoy the benefits of growing your own. They offer shipping and you can find their syrup, shrub and juice in health food stores across BC! Their farm is near near Switsemalph in Secwepemcúl’ecw (Salmon Arm, BC)
Jen Baker is a first-generation farmer who owns and operates Hogs & Horns Homestead with her wife Monica. The farm was founded in 2020 as they both had a increasing desire for food connection and passion for education around the importance of heritage breeds.
Amy Nikkel grew up surrounded by lovingly grown back-yard and wild foraged food, but the first introduction to large(r) scale farming, along with it’s beastly PTO attachments and tangles of barbed wire fencing, was a bit of a shock. Amy started growing a unique variety of grain (naked oats) on a farm that is huge in comparison to the back-yard gardens of her childhood, but minuscule when compared to conventional grain farms. Bridging the gap between human-scale food production/consumption and industrial scale agriculture has become a focus of the farm. Adagio Acres now mills grains from their own farm, as well as lentils, beans, corn, flax, and buckwheat from other organic farms around Manitoba, with an emphasis on reducing on-farm food loss through matching the scale of processing with the needs of the small farms around the province.
City Street Farm is a social enterprise that transforms front and back yards in Regina, SK into productive vegetable and flower gardens. The business was founded in the fall of 2020 by Miranda Holt and Candace Benson when they came together to discuss how to make use of the lawns that blanket the city to grow something other than grass.
Candace grew up around farming and has been involved in agriculture in one way or another for the last 10 years.She earned a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Saskatchewan in 2015 and a Permaculture Design Certificate from Verge Permaculture in 2020.
Miranda has always been surrounded by gardens, learning from her Nonna and mom along the way. She has been gardening on her own for 15 years now and has enjoyed feeding her family with the bountiful harvests from her yard while passing down her knowledge to her two kids. She has a passion for using plants as medicine, compost creating and seed saving. Miranda earned her Permaculture Design Certificate and took an Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Prairies course from Janeen Kozey at Edible Landscapes in 2018/2019. In 2020 she founded Better Earth Worms, a vermicomposting operation that creates compost for its sister company, City Street Farms.
My name is Ardeo, my pronouns are they/them and I’m the sole farmer at Rake and Radish Farm. I’m a white settler with Jewish (from Poland and Ukraine/Russia) and Serbian (from Bosnia and Herzegovina) roots on my Dad’s side and ancestry from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland on my Mum’s side.
I’m currently living and farming on the lands of the lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples, on the north slope of PKOLS. I grew up on the territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples in čən’it taŋ’exw and also spent formative time in Hul’q’umi’num-speaking and W̱SÁNEĆ territories.
I’ve wanted to be a farmer since I was a kid and started my first farm internship on Salt Spring Island three days after I finished Grade 12. After that, I spent three years as the farm hand at City’s Edge Farm in Saanich, with one summer off in the middle of it all to go WWOOFing in France. In the early spring of 2020, I signed my farm lease and began building Rake and Radish Farm from the ground up.
The first season at Rake and Radish was incredibly busy as the transformation from hay field to half acre market garden took place, while feeding 50 lovely (and very patient) CSA box members. Each season since has brought new challenges (hello heat domes and flooding), lots of successes (like every time that the seeds I plant germinate perfectly) and the chance to meet and connect with so many lovely CSA box members and other farmers in the community.
During the winter when the mud is too deep to be farming and I need a break from staring at farm spreadsheets, I facilitate Queer Sex Ed workshops in the community and help run the monthly Queer Crafternoon program. In my free time (which is admittedly sparse during farm season but we’re working on it!) I love curling up with a good book or fanfic, jumping in the ocean, going on long walks, drinking endless cups of tea, learning new languages, playing board games and spending time with friends and family.
Bronwyn is passionate about growing nutritious food for her family and community in a way that regenerates our land. She has been serving and managing restaurants for the past 12 years. Bronwyn has been independently studying agriculture and food systems ever since graduating from high school, in her hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Bronwyn’s favorite place to be is in her backyard garden. Currently she is employed with Holistic Management Canada as Project Manager and Communications. She is an associate Educator with the Savory Institute. Her dream is to build a green space just outside of Winnipeg that grows nutrient dense food, restores ecosystem processes, and acts as a hub for people in the community to share, learn, and grow together.
My name is Boma, I grew up in a non-farming background. However, I’ve always had an attraction towards farming and animals. I did my first degree in nursing and later returned for a degree in animal science which should be completed by summer 2023. My first major on-farm work experience was with the Young Agrarians Apprenticeship program of summer 2022, and it taught me a lot about farming. My confidence in the field has grown and I have met a bunch of amazing farmers and agriculture enthusiasts.
Thank you to the sponsors of this event:
I wonder how a keen agrarian becomes a certified teacher/educator in the BC Education system. Are there programs geared, specifically, to teaching agrarian arts?
Hi Christine,
The BC K-12 education system has its own required certification process so I think you’d have to go through that. If you have farming knowledge to add to it then that would be rad but I don’t think any programs have elements of farming and certified teaching. If you want to teach at post-secondary institutions then you usually need some sort of post-secondary degree but not always.
Hope that helps,
JoHana
How can you sign up?
As someone with a 9-5 office job will I be able to attend?
Hi Sam!
Thanks for your message! You can register here, by clicking the “Take This Course” button at the top of the page: https://youngagrarians.org/courses/how-to-start-farming/
There will be live sessions which participants are encouraged to attend. Live sessions are held on Thursday evenings (5 pm PT, 6 pm MT, 7 pm CT, 8 pm ET, 9 pm AT).
Please don’t hesitate to drop the instructor, Alex, an email at alex@youngagrarians.org if you have any other questions!
JoHana