MARCH 2018• COUNTRY LIFE IN BC
Urban farmers take their dreams up-country
Scaled-back business plan reflects realities of small-scale agriculture
by MYRNA STARK LEADER
MERRITT – The best-laid plans can change quickly in agriculture, which has meant a rollercoaster ride for Julia Smith and Ludo Ferrari in the two years since they set up Blue Sky Ranch outside Merritt, a farm dedicated to raising sustainable, ethical, non-GMO pork for the consumer market. Raised in Oakville, Ontario, Julia had a web development company for about 10 years and was pursuing a geology degree when she met Ludo at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Richmond. He’s from Paris, France with a background in construction and restoration. Neither had a farm background. “We were definitely not on the farming track,” says Smith, explaining that one of their shared interests was trying to be more self-sufficient. “We could see the direction the world is going in, most of which I can’t control, but we decided we could grow our own food.”
Living on a big Vancouver
lot where the previous residents had been gardeners, they answered a Craigslist ad
by someone seeking garden space. “This woman set up a
vegetable garden and showed us what she was doing,” says Smith. “The next year, we took it over ourselves and very quickly we found ourselves with a half-acre of veggies and a chicken coop in Richmond. Then, things progressed quickly. We sold or gave away everything we owned and moved into a 34- foot trailer at this three-acre farm in Burnaby because, as you might imagine, paying rents and farming in Vancouver are mutually exclusive.” Pigs came into the picture because the Burnaby property was covered with weeds. “The solutions were an
excavator or pigs, so we got a couple pigs and then we realized that growing bacon is way more fun than growing carrots,” she says with a smile. They started small and the
herd grew. They slaughtered and butchered themselves the first year but outgrew the Burnaby property within four years – about the time when FCC came along with their young farmer loan program. In November 2015, with
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Julia Smith and Ludo Ferrari relocated from the Lower Mainland to Merritt to pursue their dream of producing “meat you can feel good about.” It hasn’t been without its setbacks, however. BLUE SKY PHOTO
savings, help from family and FCC, they bought 21-acres of bare land for $214,000, mostly surrounded by Crown land, coming down the Coquihalla foothills at Merritt. Merritt was close to their
Vancouver market. It had water and less rain which made the thought of caring for pigs without mud much more attractive. Amidst the trees and falling down barbed-wire fence, the couple started building. But, like many first-time
farmers, finances were an issue when everything costs
more and takes longer than you think. “When you’re as tight as we
were, you tend to be overly optimistic in your planning,” explains Smith, saying business plans don’t take every risk into account – or determination. “But if I wrote it realistic, we would have never done it,” she explains. “It doesn’t make sense on paper and there’s no line in accounting for passion, guts and stubborn.” By the end of 2016,
construction still had a ways to go. Winter in early 2017
was the coldest in 40 years. As the sows started to farrow, a deep cold snap set in and although the pigs were in an insulated barn, the inside temperature was still -10 C. When each new piglet was born, she’d run down, dry it off and place it in an insulated box warmed with bricks heated on a wood stove. At the same time, she’d been commuting weekly to their butcher shop in Vancouver and had just finished a very busy week
See PIGS on next page o
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