You have seriously considered investing in organic food, and determined that the only way to go is to own your own farm. Of course we can rent a farm, but that’s an entirely different story.

First Things First

Before deciding on what and where to  buy, a few things need be considered first.

• What’s the way of life you are envisioning? A full-time farmer? Or you will keep your daytime job and only farm on the side? Being a farmer might not be as rosy as some describe. Do you mind working from sunup to sundown for weeks in a row, and then have not much to do for a couple of months?
• What farming experience do you have? Did you grow up on a farm? Did you ever dirty your hands trying to grow something in a pot?
• What type of farm are you considering? Vegetables? Fruits? Field crops? Poultry? Eggs? Pork? Beef? Dairy? Or will it be a self subsistence farm where you produce food for the family and only sell the surplus?
• If you are quitting your job to devote all your time to the farm and you will be relying on the farm to raise a family, stop for a while and think it out clearly. Farming businesses fail at a very high rate in the first few years. If the farming adventure does not work out as expected, what’s the Plan B? What’s the exit strategy?

You can, of course, decide on these things later on but it’s better to think a bit about the way of life you expect. Depending what you want to do with the farm, you might also need a business plan. After you get a satisfactory answer to the above questions, it’s time to seriously consider some serious things before you plunge hundreds of thousands of dollars into it.

Here is a list of things to consider when buying a farm (this is in no way exhaustive):

Location

Just like buying a house, you will need to decide first where you want your farm to be. Does it need to be close to where you live right now? Or it does not matter where to go as long as you find your dream farm? If you have kids going to school, does the school bus pass by the house? Is the school good? It’s no fun to drive the kids to and from school during a 14-hour working day. Is the farm close to the your target consumers? Where is the nearest farmer’s market?

Acreage

The way you farm will determine how much land you will need and the type of land, like pasture, or tillable land, flat or slope. If you are planning to mainly grow vegetables, you will need a much smaller land than if you want to grow field crops, like wheat or soybeans.

Water

Water is always necessary to whatever you grow or raise. Chances are that you do not have access to the municipal water system. So you will need your own well and if you have a stream, find out if you can use the water for irrigation. Do a water lab test to see if the water is good to drink. Determine the volume of water you will need for your farming operations. Who lives upstream? Is there any contamination?

Soil

As long as you plan to farm on the land, you should always have a soil test. Such a test will tell you the soil type, what chemical residues are in your soil, what nutrients are present or missing, what percentage of organic matter is the soil composed of.

Farm House

If the farm comes with a house, great. A house is a house, just make sure that it’s in fair condition; and if not you are ready and able to make any repairs necessary. If there is no house, can you get a permit to build a house? Learn about the septic system.

Neighbors

Are your future neighbors in conventional farming? Do they use GMO? If you are considering getting organic certification, consult a certifying body to see if it’s even possible for you to get certified if surrounded by conventional farmers and GMO growers.

Access to your property

Do you have access to a public road? If not, what easements do you have? Who has what easements on your land?

Use of professionals

A good agent will be of great help in your search for your dream farm. They know what questions to ask and where to look for potential issues, and where to point you to when and where other professional advice should be sought. Take your time in your search of an agent. You might also need a good accountant and a lawyer, if you do not already have one.

Then, of course, the above is in no way advice on investment. The standard disclaimer always applies.

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The best way I can think of is to use them as seeds for the next year. Those cherry tomato seedlings cost me 3$ each just two months ago. By saving those tomato seeds, I might save a couple of bucks that could be used somewhere else. What’s more, I might share some of those seeds with friends.

Heirloom vs. Hybrid Seeds

If you have never heard of heirloom seeds, now is the time. Heirloom seeds usually mentioned side by side with hybrid seeds.  Hybrid seeds are pollinated by crossing selected varieties, sometimes resulting in vigorous plants that yield more than heirlooms, but seeds from hybrid plants usually do not breed true. While heirloom vegetables are varieties that are open-pollinated and saved and handed down through multiple generations. Make sure that the plants from which you are saving seeds are not from hybrid seeds, as the hybrid varieties will not breed true, meaning the taste, color of the tomato from those seeds will not be the same.

Saving Tomato Seeds

To prepare and save tomato seeds is a fairly simple process. Just scoop up the part of tomato with seeds and dry them out to get the seeds. But those seeds might have difficulty germinating with all the goo on them. A better way is to ferment them. The fermenting process will remove the goo and produce some healthy seeds.

It was just one day ago that the tomatoes were picked and they were already starting to ferment all by themselves (well, guess I helped a bit by leaving them in the sun for a few hours the other day).

I squeezed the seeds and goo’s out, as it was a bit hard to scoop the seeds with a spoon or knife when the fermentation process has already kicked in.

I put those seeds enclosed in goo’s in my drinking glass (it happens to be the first container that I thought of; don’t worry, I will give it a good wash when it’s done!) so that I can see what happens in there. I pricked the plastic so that air can go in and out of the glass to help with the fermentation process.

Don’t forget to stir the mixture so that some air goes in there. Some of the good seeds were already sinking to the bottom of the glass.

Give it one more day, the fermentation would completely separate the seeds from its slimy goo’s.

Put a fine sieve in a basin and pour the mixture into the sieve. Let water run into the sieve while shaking the sieve, the seeds would fall with the water into the basin. Do this a couple more times if necessary. Now that all the slimy stuff is washed off the seeds, we can lay them on a piece of coffee filter or paper towel and let the water drain out.

Seeds Storage

A few days later, the seeds are dry. I’d put them in an envelope, mark it (variety and date saved) and put the envelope in a dry location. It should be good for the next year, or two. I would rather not put them in a plastic bag, but if the seeds are really dry, it should be okay. Some recommend storing the seeds in an air-tight container and leaving it in the fridge. Just don’t forget to label it. I might take a picture of the tomato and leave a copy with the seeds.

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There is good news, though. You do not have to buy only organic to eat healthy. Some conventionally grown foods are OK for your health.

We can roughly divide up our food into two categories for this purpose. If we are to start eating organic, let’s see what are our choices.

To sum up, for foods derived from animals, organic is strongly recommended; for vegetables and fruits, eat organic produce that contain the most pesticide residues, and non-organic the rest.

To eat organic on a limited budget, it’s hard but not impossible. There are sometimes bargains that you can find in your local store flyers, or buy meat that are close to their expiry date and then freeze it for later use.

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An international team of experts analyzed 343 studies into the compositional differences between organic and conventional crops and published their results in the British Journal of Nutrition, in a paper titled Higher antioxidant concentrations and less cadmium and pesticide residues in organically-grown crops: a systematic literature review and meta-analyses.

Most important of the finds are as follows:

Please note that this study itself is not a study into the compositional differences between organically grown crops and conventionally grown crops. This is a “meta-analysis” which, according to the definition on Wikipedia, refers to “methods that focus on contrasting and combining results from different studies, in the hope of identifying patterns among study results, sources of disagreement among those results, or other interesting relationships that may come to light in the context of multiple studies“. 

Now that we are sure that organic foods are more nutritious, let’s find out what organic foods we should eat (if we cannot eat 100% organic) in a later post.

The post Proved: Organic Foods Are More Nutritious appeared first on EatingOrganic.CA.

Invest Organic

By “invest in organic”, I mean more than buying /owning / operating an organic farm, or other organic enterprise. Money spent on your garden, on your studies in an organic farming related field, or time spent taking care of your vegetables in your garden. Those are all investment in organic. If you have done any of those, you have invested in organic. You are, therefore, an organic investor.

When people make an investment, they normally expect some return, be it for personal financial enrichment, or pure altruist ideals for the good of other people, or just for the fun of it. For me, any investment in organic, before I actually buy a farm, would be totally for the fun and the pleasure of feeding my kids with what I grow myself. There is one thing for sure, though, that is one day, I will buy a farm. It might be for the pleasure of growing the food, or it might be the fun trying to sell it. Either way, I will be eating organic, and having fun.

Opportunity cost is another factor people consider while evaluating prospective  investment projects. Think of that cost as the time, money, expertise etc. that one could use elsewhere. Would the expected returns exceed the opportunity cost? If not, you would be better off not investing there. That depends on how you valuate the cost versus returns. A billionaire might make more money investing his money in venture capital, but instead choose to give most of his money to a charitable foundation. Why? He derives more enjoyment doing so than making more money.

In my example, I could buy a lot more organic food than I could ever grow in my little garden with the money that I would have otherwise made working on some accounting clients.

Are we investing organic for a single shot? or for the long term? This is what is referred to by Investment Horizon. 5 years and less in the future is considered short-term, 5 to 10 intermediate-term, and 10 plus years long term.

Since we are talking about investing organic and making money, we would disregard for the moment the potential of buying up organic farms and selling them for a profit. That’s real estate business. We are talking about investing organic and holding it. And for that at minimum an intermediate-term seems appropriate.

Invest Organic and Make Money

What if we just want to make money growing organic food? Could we expect a return greater than the opportunity cost of saving the money in the bank and us working an 8-hour day job? Then we need to start from the cost, the expected return, and the opportunity cost. (Disclaimer: Please note that I might have a much coveted professional designation in the investment industry, I am no expert in investing organic. The following is best interpreted as my thinking out loud from the perspective of an aspiring organic farmer. This is not intended as investment advice and should not be construed as such.)

We would need to write up a business plan to really start a business. But for our purpose today, we will start our analysis with the costs associated in this investment.

The list could go on for a while, but this will work as a starter. If those costs are already taken care of, we can proceed and see  what we need to make money.

I will continue my brain-storming in another post.

The post Invest Organic? Have You? Will You? appeared first on EatingOrganic.CA.

Are they more healthy? Do they contain more nutrients? More minerals? How much more expensive to eat organic? Can I afford to eat organic? Who eats organic?

I know, you have a lot of questions. So do I. Let’s find out the answers together.

We eat to live. Not live to eat. But we won’t mind if we can eat to live and enjoy eating at the same time. Here are some of the most obvious benefits of eating organic:

1. Organic food is more healthy.
   • No synthetic pesticide is allowed in organic farming. You do not want to eat food that might make you sick. You must have heard of food poisoning. That’s when food makes people sick. With all the pesticides and You know they apply pesticides to kill pests and protect the vegetables and fruits that we eat, right? How much of that pesticide is still on the vegetables and fruits when we put them on our table? Can simply washing remove all the remnants of pesticides?
   • No antibiotics are allowed in animal feed. One of the causes of precocious puberty is antibiotics kids have absorbed through their food.
2. Organic food is safer.
   • No GMO input is allowed in organic food. Food produced according to organic standards have been feeding people for at least thousands of years. Scientists might argue all they want for or against the damages that might be caused by GMO to human health, but do you want to be their lab mouse? I do not.
3. Organic food taste better. Well, as they say, the proof is in the pudding.
4. Organic farming is eco-friendly. With all the chemical fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, applied every year in the fields, how much end up in our water source? How much species suffer as a result of this agricultural pollution?
5. Organic farming is sustainable. Organic farming utilizes methods like crop rotation, green manure, compost, and biological pest control.
6. Organic food is usually produced locally, thus more fresh when it is put on your kitchen table.
7. By eating organic, you support local economy, especially through programs like Community Supported Agriculture.

The more I think about all the good things from eating organic, the more I am determined to eat organic and grow organic, and invest organic (that’ll be the topic of another post). Where I live, organic food is much more expensive. For now, I buy some and I grow some.

Now if you don’t mind, I’ll have to tend to my vegetables in my backyard.

The post Why Eat Organic? What Are the Benefits? appeared first on EatingOrganic.CA.

At the risk of simplification and overgeneralization, we can define organic food as

food, such as vegetables, grains, fruits, meat, eggs, etc.  produced using pretty much the same methods developed and perfected by our ancestors hundreds of years ago.

You think this organic food definition is too simple? Then continue for a more complicated version.

According to Wikipedia,

Organic foods are produced using methods of organic farming. Currently, the European Union, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan and many other countries require producers to obtain special certification in order to market food as organic within their borders. In the context of these regulations, organic food is food produced in a way that complies with organic standards set by national governments and international organizations. Organic food production is a heavily regulated industry, distinct from private gardening.

From the organic food definition quoted above, we can see that,

• firstly, organic food is a result of organic farming;
• secondly, Organic food is a heavily regulated industry in those countries/regions where food producers need special certification to label their food as organic.

Let’s see what is conventional farming and how organic farming differs. Conventional farming is also referred to as intensive farming or intensive agriculture.

Intensive farming or intensive agriculture is an agricultural production system characterized by a low fallow ratio and the high use of inputs such as capital, labour, or heavy use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers relative to land area. ¹  — Wikipedia

How is organic farming different from conventional farming? As is defined on Wikipedia,

Organic farming is a form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost, and biological pest control.

In other words, organic farming makes very few use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers.

Now you know that food we grow in our backyard is organic. We can tell our neighbor that our backyard tomatoes are organic, but can we sell our “organic” tomatoes on a public market and label it as such?

That depends. If you live in Ontario Province and you sell your organically grown tomatoes in your neighborhood, I’d say you can. If you live in Quebec Province,  then you are not allowed to. Unless, you go through a rather complicated certification process (which we will talk about in another article) and obtain the right to use Logo Bio Quebec.

That’s what “heavily regulated industry” was referring to in the above quoted organic food definition.

In Canada, the federal Organic Products Regulations require mandatory certification for agricultural products represented as organic in import, export and inter-provincial trade. Or if the producer wishes to use the federal organic product logo, satisfying the certification requirements becomes mandatory. 

Where the use of “organic” is regulated, it usually requires that the name of the certification body is shown on the package along with the organic labeling.

Products which have obtained an organic certification must meet certain labeling requirements. The most important remains the mandatory inclusion of the words “certified by” followed by the name of the certifier. — CARTV

Notes:

1. Italics are added by the editor.

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Then, where to you buy organic food in Montreal?

Organic Grocery Stores

There are some groceries stores that specialize in organic food in Montréal, one of which is Marché Tau. In the greater Montréal area, it operates fives stores which you can locate on their website at http://www.marchestau.com/. I have been to two of their stores, which tend to be quite small in floor area and not very easy to navigate. But I have friends who make their regular grocery tours at Marché Tau stores and are pretty happy with what they get there.

There is also a self-proclaimed “Montréal’s only all organic grocery store” , EcollegeY, based in N.D.G., Montréal. You can even order your organic groceries online through their website plus over the phone and have it delivered free to your doorstep! (Certain conditions apply, but when don’t they? ) Here’s their website http://www.ecollegey.com. Their phone number is 514-486-2247, if you want to give it a try. The ordering experience might not be exactly like when you order your lunch pizza.

Farmer’s Markets

Farmer’s markets would also be a good  place to go to for your organic basket. The better-known ones are the Public Markets, which you can find more information @ http://www.marchespublics-mtl.com/. I will be visiting some of the markets and will surely come back with more information.

CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture

There is an alternative to your daily/weekly grocery shopping trips. That is in the form of Community Supported Agriculture. More and more people are getting their fresh organic vegetables through this community program. Organic consumers and producers share the risks and enjoy the benefits in the harvest together. The consumers pay in advance for a share of the farmer’s harvest, and the farmer delivers a wide variety of fresh produce on a regular basis (usually weekly or biweekly) to a drop-off spot.

In Québec, the CSA project is generally referred to as panier bio or organic basket.

You can find participating farms through Equiterre, and then place your order with the farm. According to the information on Equiterre’s website, the Equiterre network of family farmers include more than 100 small, sustainable farms. Find out more information here.

Food Cooperative

You can also join a food coop, if you can find one, that is. Here are a few (more will be added as I locate more):

http://www.greenpeople.org/ Here is an excerpt from the organization’s website:

GreenPeople.org is the world’s largest online directory of green, eco-friendly, and holistic goods and services and non-profit organizations, serving consumers since 1998.

Our mission is to help consumers and green businesses connect. Our goal is to guide people through a crowded marketplace to find green, eco-friendly and healthy products and services. We help consumers, investors and businesses to harness their economic power to promote environmental sustainability.
GreenPeople Directory businesses are reviewed against stringent stringent eco-criteria, examining ingredients, supply sources, organic or other certifications, and the effect the product or service has on the environment. We weed out toxic, or ‘greenwashed’ products or services, resulting in a trusted directory of 20,000 members and growing.

http://www.cooplamaisonverte.com/

http://marche.csur.ca/

Special Mention: Paraland Organic Farm

According to the information provided by the owner, the Paraland Organic Farm covers an area of 150 acres of land, which has not been treated with any chemical fertilizer or pesticide for over 30 years. The owner started to farm the land this year and is currently working with an accredited certifying body to obtain organic certification.

The farm is offering its customers three seasons of fresh, healthy and locally produced vegetables at a reasonable price through CSA – the risk and benefit sharing community program. While most of the farmers take a break during the winter months, the Paraland has invested in greenhouses which will enable the farm to produce fresh vegetables all year round.

Paraland Farm offers three sizes of organic baskets, ranging from $360 to $720 for 18 weeks during the summer. There are cage-free organic eggs as an add-on for 3$ a half dozen. The farm is open to the public every Sunday during the summer. For more information, you can call the farmer @ 514-999-3587 or visit the farm. It’s located at 2653 Chemin du Fief, Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec  J7V 0K4.

The post Where to Buy Organic Food in Montreal? appeared first on EatingOrganic.CA.

We read about food contamination, pollution, pesticides, genetically-modified food, and food-related disease on a daily basis. Now we are no longer sure if what we have been relying on for living will one day cause our own death.

On the Internet, we can find all kinds of information about food and health and lots of other things. There are believers of organic food and there are, of course, others that do not believe paying a premium price for organic food is worth it. Who is right? Who is wrong?

Or is there right or wrong in people’s choice of food?

It will be up to you to decide. Due to the special characteristics of organic farming and production, organic foods usually cost more than conventionally grown foods to buy. There is, however, also the possibility to grow some of our own food, in our backyard, or even on the balcony. It’s all about devotion and time. And it’s one’s personal choice.

I have made mine. My choice.

By launching this website, I have made a commitment to, on the one hand, keep track of my experience with organic food, and, on the other, share with my readers what I have learned during this endeavor.

It’s all about organic food. It’s EatingOrganic.CA, based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

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