FEBRUARY 2017 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


Changing direction


Five farmers reflect on leaving good careers to find success (and fulfilment) in agriculture by DAVID SCHMIDT


LANGLEY – What do a policeman, a social worker, a teacher, an office administrator and an auctioneer have in common? They all chose farming as a second career. They told their inspirational stories at the Langley Sustainable Agriculture Foundation’s Farming as a Second Career workshop last fall.


As is becoming usual at LSAF workshops, Langley Township mayor Jack Froese welcomed participants with his own experience. Although he grew up on one of BC’s largest egg farms and initially bought his own egg farm, he soon sold his quota to become a Vancouver policeman. But farming wouldn’t leave his blood and he started growing turkeys on the side. After retiring from policing in 2004, he focused on making the farm profitable. “We changed the whole farm and found a way to diversify by marketing our own turkeys,” Froese said. Thanks to the hard work of his entire family, the effort has paid off. Now run by his son and two daughters, JD Farms has become a successful specialty turkey grower, processor, wholesaler and retailer.


No experience; no problem


Although “I grew up with farm stories on both sides of my family,” Vista D’Oro Farms’ Patrick Murphy had no direct experience when he chucked a successful career as a marketing manager for Ritchie Brothers Auctioneers to start farming in south Langley in 1997. He planted a vineyard and an orchard and grew vegetables for sale to restaurants and farmers markets.


Since that was not


rewarding enough, he took the advice of then-BC Ministry of Agriculture direct marketing specialist Brent Warner to expand into value- added agri-tourism and the advice of his old boss, Dave Ritchie, to think globally. He started producing


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preserves and, later, wines and marketing them both locally and around the world. Nothing is sacrosanct, he says, noting “we’ve shipped pallets of pineapple jam to Hawaii.” His keys to success: “Look at as many spokes as you can, find a home for what you grow and develop


relationships with distributors and retailers.”


An addiction


Cathy Finley of Laurica Farm in Langley, Dan Oostenbrink of Local Harvest in Chilliwack and Ashala Daniel of Sapo Bravo Organics in Lytton are more recent converts but all are making a successful transition. Finley, a former social worker from England, began her transition to farming “from gardening.” She started growing her own food at her Surrey residence and was soon growing enough to feed


Jack Froese, centre, is surrounded by his family, from left to right Jenny, Debbie, Jason and Marilyn at family-owned JD Farms. SUPPLIED PHOTO


many of her neighbours as well.


“Farming is not a job, it’s an addiction,” she said. To feed that addiction she moved to an empty five-acre plot in Langley three years ago. Since the farm had “no soil,” she invested in four pigs. “They till all day and create great loamy soil. After the pigs graze the first year, we use the land to grow vegetables the following


year.”


She now has 20 pigs as well as goats, chicken and sheep. One neighbour raises beef for her while others grow chicken and turkeys to her


specifications. Saying “you need to be aggressive in marketing,” she sells most of her products at farmers markets, to restaurants or through a CSA (community- supported agriculture) box program. Many former Surrey


neighbours have become her customers, paying for vegetables they used to get for nothing.


“Our farm evolved from our values,” she says. Since some customers balk at the prices, education has become “a big part of what we do. People don’t want to pay what food really costs.”


That can be a lot. See CHANGE on next page o


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