The New Farm now tops my list of books to recommend to people who want to farm. The New Farm is not a how-to book; there are no detailed descriptions of farming techniques. Instead, it’s the personal story of the author and his wife, “enthusiastic and idealistic and profoundly naïve” urbanites who buy land in Ontario with the dream of having an organic farm.
One aspect that sets The New Farm apart from related books is that the farmers, Brent Preston and Gillian Flies, are incredibly successful. After a decade, their gross sales are $40,000 per acre — a number which confounds the Stats Can data collector whose computerized form won’t accept such a high number. At the end of the book, they’re not just enjoying a homegrown meal and basking in the success of their labour. They’re eating an amazing meal created by some of the nation’s top chefs while the Tragically Hip is playing a concert in their barn, and the farm is raising $75,000 to support a campaign to make organic food more accessible to low-income people. They are also, after ten years of farming, free of their mortgage and other debt and make their living entirely by farming twenty acres.
The book begins with fluffy day-old chicks. The scene soon devolves into a horrible yet hilarious story of how the newbie farmer tries again and again to kill chicks that were maimed by a cat… only to hear the peeping start up again after each attempt at slaughter. This is part of farming. Too many books extol the many wonderful aspects of farming and gloss over the ugly parts. Preston, however, covers the challenging subjects, including death, castration and debt, and describes how he and his wife considered giving up. He writes about the challenges of keeping good relationships with neighbours who spray pesticides and the hassles involved with relying on unpaid interns, or as wife refers to them, “people who want to be disabused of the idea that they want to be farmers.”
Farmers, both new and experienced, can learn from the experiences of Preston and Flies. There are useful tips about hoop houses, succession planting and using marshmallows as bait in groundhog traps. Preston provides his perspective on which investments are worth the money, (such as large salad spinners) and the advantages of paid labour rather than interns. He also shares tips about marketing. Granted, not everyone will want to follow their path. For example, at first they follow Eliot Coleman’s advice to the letter. Later Preston writes, tongue-in-cheek. “Eliot Coleman says that a couple can make a living on two or three acres, using nothing more than a walk-behind Rototiller, with no outside labour. Gillian and I followed that prescription for two seasons and came to an irrevocable conclusion: Eliot Coleman is a liar.” They resist what Preston calls “the small farm orthodoxy.” Their route to success requires getting bigger, investing in machines and foreign labour. But they realize at one point, the farm is a success but at the expense of their happiness. At that point, they decide to stop expanding, focus on becoming more efficient, and make the quality of life for themselves and their employees a top priority.
If you want to learn something about farming along with entertainment, I recommend The New Farm. In fact, I don’t think it should just be recommended for wannabe farmers, I think it should be read by non-farmers. Perhaps if consumers read this book, they would better understand and appreciate the hard work and struggles that go into growing their food.
- Stuart Logie