The prospects for our farm and how to keep interested in farm life:

Updated Jan 2026

With just Dorothee and I farm life is quite good but the work load is getting harder as we age and I am having problems with my sore feet latley. With this in mind I am looking for someone who would want some part time work and to learn the art of Oil pressing, Flour milling and hopefully also take part in the other activities on the farm such as horses, growing grains machine maintenance and working for better soils that also encompasses the many insects, plants, trees animals and friends on our farm.

When I look at local farms I see so many that abuse their soils, have tremendous debt and are not able to maintain the soil health properly. The degrading soil in our world has long been talked and written about often over the past century. People like Louis Bromfield and Ed Faulkner point this out many times in their writings. I do note that cover crops are increasing locally. If one has a farm with over 1000 acres it seems possible to derive a profit but it is very machine and fossil fuel intensive. How can our system provide food for most of the world that relies on a depleting resource of fossil fuels? Life in agriculture is not very stable as the multinational firms purchase most of the crops and one cannot earn sufficient income on a small farm unless they sell direct to customers which is what we try to do. It is also quite apparent that those who provide the farmers with machinery and amendments are the ones who profit from agriculture and certainly not the local farmers.

Then there is climate change which is affecting all of our farms. Generally farms grow crops particular to their area but now some crops are no longer viable with the dry summers we are experiencing. For the hot dry summer of 2025 I grew sorghum which did rather well.We are receiving too much rain at times and experienced a severe drought in the summer of 2025.

Debt is a very real problem for the general population and many mortgages will be in default if there is a job loss which we are now experiencing exacerbated by continuing inflation of imported goods. Unemployed people will stop purchasing many items like cars, appliances, food and computers which in turn creates more unemployment as manufacturers profits decline which means they needs to lay off workers.

Our modern way of life in north America with prepared foods, expensive cars, high energy costs, and luxury air travel, has become unsustainable. Countries like Mexico, Africa are much more able to have a future with the local skills and many local markets available. Generally there is just too few resources for too many people and many of those people especially in north America cannot even grow a garden let alone cook a meal.

We were very lucky to have afforded a farm but making a profit now is difficult but our backup plan of being self sufficient which was started over 25 years ago needs to be carefully done while trying to earn enough money for land taxes and some machinery to make life easier for us which seems like a good backup plan.

Learning to work together is very difficult especially if money is scarce. The thought of working 7 days a week doing chores is not very exciting but for myself I am happily farming and looking forward to each new day. This is challenge I enjoy as I feel free from the job related mentality permeating society today and it is a real challenge to work with the horses and grow crops.

As I stated earlier many farmers have a day job which is similar to us having a pension. What is important as well as having a skill that can earn money outside the farm but also one must also have an great interest on the farm in such things a bird identification, insect identification, plant identification, machinery fixing, machinery building, woodworking, machine shop work to fully enjoy the farm life. Things like games that involve others such as volley ball, soccer and baseball are a necessary part of this lifestyle

Organic farming is not just a trend, it's the future of agriculture | United Nations Development Programme

Every once and a while I sit down and write up what we should consider for the future of our farm.

We will have a number of changes to think of in 2026 and some new concepts to think about.

In dong some simple math I thought we should add Emmer to our possible grains to grow. Emmer is very similar to Spelt in that it needs a dehuller.. and we have one. Seeds store well in our refrigerator seed storage shed. I did purchase another flour mill which would work out just fine. I am thinking of building a cob oven to make bread and recently have been making some spelt bread.

The next obstacle is to find customers for the flour. I feel it would be good to attend more markets close to the farm. This would provide some needed exposure to the buying public and hopefully in the end create some loyal customers for the fresh ground flour as well as our fresh oils and some vegetables, maybe even duck eggs.

Dorothee does not like going to the markets as she wants to spend her time on the farm with the various chores. I like going to markets but also need to spend the time working on the machinery and fields but I do get a good feeling meeting people and developing our customers at the markets. I need to find someone who likes going to the markets.

We might also sell seeds for home milling such as flax, spelt, emmer, hemp,oats. Having a dehuller for oats would be good too so we can provide a hot breakfast cereal.

Vegetables are another area where one can sell without restrictions. I suggest that we try grow vegetables that are different from the run of the mill store bought veggies. Perhaps catering to the Jamaican or African vegetables would prove worthwhile or just unusual varieties not sold in the stores.

Dried fruits may also prove worthwhile as we have excess electricity in the summer months.

It also occurs to me that if a number of vendors got together to man one booth at the markets then our attendance on every market would not be every other market day.

After visiting the farm of Gordon Wells it might also be a very good idea to plant trees on our farm such as Hazel nuts.

mat