Share our farm

Farm: Mats Fine Oils
Location: Straffordville, Southwestern Ontario

If you are passionate about organic regenerative farming and want to be on a self sustaining farm then: Write me with your resume at <mat@matsfineoilsandflour.ca>

We have a number of people that admire our farm life but this life requires a lot of skills and dedication to be self sufficient which we are willing to share what we know.

To be part of this farm one needs a skill that can produce an income. It could be veggies from a rented field from us, or wood worker in our woodworking shop, or a machinist in our machine shop, or welder in our welding shop.

This is a kind of co op idea where housing food and heat is provided by those living here and in return each person takes on the many chores of planting crops, working with horses, helping with the chickens, maintaining the machinery and the list goes on.

Something to think about concerning the future of our civilization is that our farm is able to survive very well with our own electricity, food, fuel, water, housing and wood for heat if all does not go well in the world. We are quite self sufficient.

The seasons dictate the many things that need to get done so we are always moving on to the next crop such as hay, rye, spelt ,corn and sunflowers. We also press oils and mill flour about every 6 weeks but the date is variable. We are self sufficient in food, water and sewage. We preserve our summer foods from the garden by canning ,freezing or drying. Life is very busy!

Learning about farming takes a lot of our time and there are very few jobs here that do not require a lot of learning such as oil pressing, combining the rye, oats or spelt, dehulling the spelt, repairing machinery, welding, machine shop, etc.

Farm life is not set up very well for the farm uneducated or those not brought up on a farm.

We have a very wonderful organic lifestyle that is debt and mortgage free and want to share it with those who are farm experienced and enthusiastic about farming. We have a new two bedroom apartment for a living space for those interested. We have tractors and draft horses with every piece of equipment necessary for growing seeds for our vegetable oils and flour. We are totally self sufficient food for ourselves horses, cow and chickens as well as having solar electricity, diesel generators that run on sunflower oil with plenty of water and a greenhouse.

See our web site at <matsfineoilsandflour.ca>

What does our farm represent:

On our farm, we press Sunflower oil, flax oil, camelina oil and hemp oils from organically grown crops from our farm or from certified organic farms. We also produce rye and spelt flour along with corn meal from our fields for our own use. We have heritage chickens and organic eggs.

We are self sufficient in water, feeding ourselves and our animals, as well as electricity from solar cells and generators that run on our sunflower oil but grid is available if necessary.

As well as the four draft horses we have four tractors, a combine and a swather with all of the equipment needed for tractors and horses in the fields, for harvesting and planting.

We practice regenerative farming using pastures and animals, having crops only after a few seasons of pasture to restore soils with cover crops and compost. There is lots of water and there is a greenhouse.

We have a welding shop, machine shop and wood working shop and all the equipment necessary for making and maintaining our equipment.

We have a wood lot were we log with the horses. We heat our water and buildings with a wood fired stoves in the winter and have evacuated tubes in the summer for hot water.

The farm is debt and mortgage free and have a good customer base for our oil and flour sales which could also be customers for a vegetable or other businesses.

All of this requires a certain amount of money and frequently my ideals are at odds with my ability to earn enough money at farming. The reality is that it is very difficult to live off of the farm income so Dorothee and I rely on our pensions to keep the operation going. This is a harsh reality to face except that the fields are doing better each year by giving us better yields with the improved soil health. The many machines are well maintained and we are able to fix them easily in our workshops. I like the idea of value added goods so we may be finding new products that use all of our crops and abilities.

The future of being self sufficient looks good for the farm and the people working here and I welcome Kari from Ghana who has offered to help and learn to run the farm for 2024.

Email us at mat@matsfineoilsandflour.ca

thanks -mat