COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • AUGUST 2018


Community is key crop for


Kelowna farmers Seed sales underpin business side of therapeutic farm


by MYRNA STARK LEADER


KELOWNA – Sharon (Sher) and John Alcock, owners of Sunshine Farm in Kelowna, aren’t your typical farmers even though they certainly produce on their 12.5 acres of land. When they met at the University of Victoria in the 1980s, they recognized the need for a place where people with differing abilities could go and acquire skills. “Most people when they get to 18 or 19, they get to say what they want to do but for people with differing IQs, that choice didn’t exist. The farm is about opportunity and supporting individuals,” explains Sher, whose interest in this work was fostered early while working at an Easter Seal camp in Lake Country. Today, Sunshine Farm


offers its nearly 50 clients a choice-based learning environment to gain a variety of skills during scheduled farm visits which range from once a week to five days a week.


The farm has a lot going on. Chickens are raised for meat and eggs, two greenhouses produce tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and other vegetables, herbs and flowers. A small orchard has 17 varieties of apples. A separate, totally accessible facility with a kitchen for cooking classes on the ground floor and meeting space, music and art and computer facilities along with offices are upstairs. It’s also the site of the


Alcocks’ home, featuring a large deck and outdoor wood-fire stone oven. Initially, they chose this Kelowna property to be closer to both their families, to raise their own family and for the farm lifestyle. Community Living BC


supports the clients’ on-farm education, while the farm’s revenue comes mostly from online sales of 5,000 to 6,000 packages of organic seed a year. The farm’s extensive seed catalogue includes berries, vegetables, tomatoes and more. Profits from produce and seed are reinvested in the farm, which recently created a new woodworking shop. The farm has been certified


organic by the Pacific Agricultural Certification


Society for 30 years. The Alcocks moved to the low-risk program to reduce costs and paperwork, and because they were established. The low-risk program certifies them for sales only within BC. “Being organic allows us to


be safe for anyone here,” Alcock says, adding that they stopped marketing at the farmgate because too many people just wanted a farm tour, which took time away from clients.


Heirloom seeds On the day of the visit, two


young women are weighing and packaging seed, another is caring for the fowl and a young man is helping to build a new concrete slab platform to house fuel tanks. “Every seed that we sell we


grow on site – heirlooms, carrots, six or seven varieties, a huge range of peppers, greens, herbs, flowers – so that means that people are involved not just with the seed but the whole growing process,” Alcock explains. “Then the cooking classes use the products, too. We focus on nutrition, affordability and what’s easily replicated so people can do that at home as well.” It's a unique business


model. The farm has eight full-time employees, including two dedicated to the farm. This ensures farm labour is always a choice, not a demand for clients. The Alcocks are converting


a former hay shed into a carpentry shop for added skill teaching and also an apartment for their farm employees, since affordable housing is in high demand and the farm can’t support higher wages. Sher says they have worked


hard to create a well- established and reliable network with other farms and service agencies who help each other and share resources and knowledge. While they know the


importance of their work, they also recognize that they are not getting any younger. “It’s been tricky because just selling the farm, like most people, would hurt a lot of people. There’s lots of good services for the people we support but nothing like the farm,” Alcock says. The current succession


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Sher and John Alcock stand inside the hay shed they are converting into a farm employee residence and carpentry shop at Sunshine Farm in Kelowna. MYRNA STARK LEADER PHOTO


plan envisions the farm being taken over by their son Russell, a commercial helicopter pilot who enjoys farming, and daughter Mona, a chef who has a gift for administration. A third child, Stewart, is in forestry. “We refused to give our


kids jobs when they graduated,” she says. “We said they had to go off and get an education and get jobs to see what they wanted. We’re really lucky two out of three


decided this is what they want to do after growing up here and are working with us.” Alcock knows of just a few


farms working with those with developmental challenges and mental health issues, including Providence Farm in Duncan, another in Atlantic Canada and one in Ireland. Sunshine Farm could take on additional clients but the Alcocks aren’t interested in expanding, saying it would de-personalize a farm that


feeds people on many levels. Personally, Alcock says she


wouldn’t know everyone by name, or be able to fully honour each visitor’s unique gifts. “We have a young fellow who can benchpress 300 pounds and a special Olympian who can swim across Okanagan Lake. We have a fellow who is deaf and has one eye who can do complicated math and also a perfect pitch singer,” she says.


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