Do the Right Thing

When we redesigned our website in 2016, we decided to flesh out that concept by creating a “We believe” statement, placing it front and center, so that people would know our core philosophies, beliefs, and hence, our way of doing food and farming.

We believe in doing the right thing, not the easy thing.

We believe that life is too short for fast food.

We believe you get what you pay for.

We believe in quality over quantity.

We believe in challenging the status quo.

We believe in good food, good wine and good conversation.

Through the next few posts, we’ll tackle these statements, sharing our story and the evolution of our farm.

We believe in doing the right thing, not the easy thing.

Back when we started farming and faced multiple droughts and an empty bank account, the easy thing would have been to sell the farm and get city jobs with regular paycheques and vacation time.

The hard thing (turned out to be the right thing) was to commit to farming, redefine it and transform our farm into a sustainable enterprise — environmentally, economically and socially. There are easier ways to earn a living, I’m sure.

As an aside, the farming business is a high volume, low margin game. Conventional wisdom dictates that farmers use all the technology available to them to grow faster, fatter, bigger, cheaper animals and earn a living on razor thin margins. We don’t blame farmers for that — they are simply responding to market signals for cheap food.

But, we believe consumers can speak powerfully with their wallets. Where the market goes, farming and food will follow.

We decided to change the game.

We don’t use medications as sub-therapeutic growth promotants. Our chickens are raised without antibiotics.

We don’t use animal byproduct for cheap protein in our chicken feed. We use flax, peas, canola and soy.

We don’t pack the barn full of birds — we open the doors and let the birds run outside when the weather is nice.

The same farming principles apply to our partnerships for All Natural beef, pork, turkeys and lamb.

Why do we do all the things that defy conventional farming wisdom, cost more and take longer?

We farm to scratch an itch — actually, we need to scratch two inexplicable itches — first, to succeed at something that others said couldn’t be done. Second, we need to do something creative that brings life to ourselves and others. What better way than food and farming?