5.7 reprise Food Futures with Brendan Grant, organic farmer

Welcome to the Food Futures edition of Something Different This Way Comes, Conversations to ease my Climate Anxiety in Thunder Bay. I’m Heather McLeod. Today I am talking to Brendan Grant of Sleepy G Farm in Pass Lake

Sleepy G Farm is a certified organic, pretty big and very productive farm that primarily sells market vegetables, but also has chickens and cows. Sleepy G Farm sells some of the food they produce through local businesses and their own farm-gate sales, but mostly they sell through Community Supported Agriculture. People buy a farm share before the harvest, then get a share of the harvest every week. 

Brendan also writes a newsletter to give insight into the realities of food production, each one examining a topic about food &/or farming from a personal, political or philosophical perspective. I look forward to reading every one of them.

Brendan and his wife and Marcelle Paulin are generous with their time and their expertise:  they teach a great gardening course through Roots to Harvest, they speak at conferences, they are leaders in several National and Regional Farm organizations, they are informal mentors to many, including my family in our farming efforts.

I am a big fan, my respect for Brendan and Marcelle and just the joy I get from their way of doing what they do – it just keeps growing. So I am pumped to share this conversation with you today.  

Last week Erin Beagle from Roots to Harvest assured me that we could eat nothing but local in Thunder Bay - we have the capacity. So we’ll get Brendan’s take on that.

And climate change is about carbon emissions - how does farming contribute, and how might it contribute less, maybe even capture more carbon that it costs, even as it feeds us all?

I mean farming is crucial to every bite you eat, excepting your hunted game and wild harvests, every family meal, every dinner out, every sip and swallow is thanks to a farmer. So talk about an essential issue to address!

Climate change is also about changing weather patterns, less predictable, more extremes. No job is more tied to the weather than farming. There is lots to talk about. So… with no further ado

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Brendan Grant and his wife Marcelle Paulin own Sleepy G Farm in Pass Lake. Next time you’re driving to Sleeping Giant Park or Silver Islet, I recommend taking a turn and visiting their farm gate shop, check the place out. I think it will give you hope 

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So much to think about in there.

The chemical nitrogen green revolution ceding ground to the billions of microbial beings-in an organic revolution. 1200 acres and 775 workers to feed everyone in the greater Thunder Bay area, year round. That sounds so do-able. 

I mean farming is capital-expensive, and hard - you need expertise and savvy and investment. You need land. But not that much land, really

If we as a community could commit the capital and gather the expertise, I think we could find 1200 acres people are willing to lend to this good cause, to start. I mean a quarter section is 160 acres, a quarter mile by a quarter mile. That was the size of your basic homestead in the settler days.

Now most of the quarter sections in this area are mostly bush, but there are many fallow acres owned by non-farmers and farmers alike, much more than 1200 acres. It would be like the victory gardens of the second world war - less mowing, more growing. And lots of people who could do this work.

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I took a book out of the library just before COVID shut it down, so I had it for a long time and read it very well: Peach Fuzz and Onion Skins: memories of Ontario Farmettes By Bonnie Sitter and ShirleyAn English documents a federal program that started up during the second world war and continued for several years after it. Helping farmers get the help they needed by engaging young women, mostly from the cities. Students who were doing well enough in school to be excused from end of year exams and sometimes the first weeks of school. They got a chance to travel outside the neighbourhood that had been their whole world. They earned money, learned skills, built friendships. Many became farmers.

They helped saved Canada’s food sovereignty when so many farm hands were at war and did not return from that war, or if they did survive, needed some time to heal, or could no longer do what they did. Many veterans chose to take advantage of the government programs granting them free tuition if they wanted a university education, or a head start to buy a house in the City.

Anyway, we had the capacity to grow all the food we need but we needed workers. So these farmettes saved the day. The federal program organized things so they had somewhere to stay, food to eat, could easily get to the work, and be assured of fair wages and safety and the farmers could hire who they needed when they needed them. It was a pool of workers, a shared resource.

So you need the land. I think that’s do-able.

You need the farmers who know what works needs doing and how to do it. The experts.

You need workers and a bit of structure, maybe some infrastructure

You need to be willing to pay fair and be safe

It sounds do-able 

As do-able as 30 cents a day tax on everyone rich enough to own a property, to help build this region’s local food growing. It gives me hope

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But I am sad a bit about our conversation about politics and agency. This gap between seeing what would help, and knowing where to take those solutions so they are heard, acted upon, improved upon. We need to elect people to represent us who listen and empower action. We have a provincial election going on now, a municipal once brewing. Who best to entrust with the job of listening and leading, prioritizing and spending our tax dollars for these pivotal next few years?

The scientists say these next few years are an opportunity to make a bit impact on how much Climate Change hurts us. We need to see action, smart, science-led, multi-faceted action now. I urge you to imagine the good you want to see in the world, ask people you know would do this job well to run for election. Talk about it, dare to voice your hopes and fears and ideas

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And like Brendan says, Vote for the World you Want to Live in, Vote with what you choose to eat. And what you choose to say. Vote with what you help make happen. And Brendan said it - sometimes to get the macro-players to give you the policies and fundings you need, you first need to “quit complaining and make it happen ourselves.”

Like Erin Beagle said last week: drive your bus, get to yes, respect the yes. Then keep learning and improving as you do what you set out to do. Quit complaining and make it happen. I don’t know what the bus might be for this  - maybe the Master Gardeners, or Future Fridays. Maybe the Rotary Club or people who volunteer at Shelter House together. Maybe your Bowling team or Knitting club. There are so many buses that could put their heads, hearts and hands together  to figure out the road to yes and past it to a sustainable local food system in Thunder Bay.

Wouldn’t that be cool? So great. I say vote with  what you dare to imagine.

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That is the Food Future edition of Something Different This Way Comes. I am Heather McLeod, voting with my voice to ease my Climate Anxiety in Thunder Bay. Thank you for joining me. And Thank you to Sleepy G Farm and Brendan Grant for this thought-provoking conversation. So much to chew over! Pardon the Pun

Thank you to David Gutnick for wading through many pages and sharing wonderful conversations to help shape this podcast. Thank you to Leea McKay, graphic designer and publicist extraordinaire for giving this show its look and online presence.

Something Different This Way Comes is a personal project, the opinions are all my own, as is the music.

Find details about the books and podcasts and everything referenced in each podcast at www.SomethingDifferentThisWayComes.ca where you can also find my reference library of hope and Writing on my Wall (clips from the podcast I post for on-going inspiration). And join me again, every Tuesday this May and June. Miigwetch!

Music up and out.