We are Brendan (He/Him) and Heather (She/Her) Dickson + kids.

Our farm is called Footfall, Our mentor is Bluesette Campbell of B-C Ranch. We farm outside of Grimshaw AB in Treaty 8 territory.

I (Brendan) couldn’t resist getting into farming. I grew up on our family honey farm but always dreamed of farming the land. Having kids was the driving factor that made that happen. With little ones around we have developed a keen interested in improving the land and ecological systems for the benefit of future generations, not to mention growing quality food to feed these growing humans.

So far, we have learnt the most by actually farming. We have spent a lot of time reading books, listening to podcasts, attending conferences etc. but the knowledge doesn’t fully sink in until we can put it into practice and see for ourselves. We learn every day from our mistakes and successes.

Our business is structured as a corporation. With two main enterprises, beekeeping and cattle production. We are partners in our family’s commercial beekeeping operation where we produce honey. Aside from that, we manage 60 acres; on this land we rotationally graze a small herd of cattle with the end goal of producing high quality beef. Most of the land we are farming we rent from family. We own a small part of it where we live and have most of our infrastructure.

We were able to use savings from our beekeeping enterprise to start up our cattle enterprise. We also received some OFCAF funding to build our interior fencing for rotational grazing.

Our grazing is managed with the intention of improving soil health and restoring or strengthening the natural cycles of the land. We also try to encourage biodiversity as much as possible and have a deep respect for wildlife in the area.

There are many informational resources we utilize. Many friends and neighbours, uncles and cousins. Various books such as Holistic Management, or Man Cattle Veld. Podcasts such as Working Cows. Our local research associations host many events in the area which are educational and are an especially good place to meet and learn from other producers.

We applied to the mentorship in hopes of making our business more viable and sustainable long term. Our primary goals for this season are to develop our long-term strategy and begin implementing it. Now that our new enterprise is up and running, everything feels much more tangible so we can dive into revisiting our goals and strategy and come up with long and short term plans.

The greatest challenge we face as new farmers is not knowing until we know. Many unanticipated things come up and at times can be overwhelming and stressful. Especially when large quantities of money are involved. The greatest asset to have would be experience but obviously that only comes with time and trying. The business tool we couldn’t live without is our bookkeeper as we continue to gain experience in that aspect of our business.

Our farm has no online presence. However, I (Brendan) am in a band called The Honey Cowboy. Much of the music is inspired by and written on the honey and cattle farm. Our website for the band is Honeycowboy.com