Story by: Kate Petrusa
Sheila harvesting salad greens at Glen Valley Farm. Photo: Chris Bodnar
Sheila Poznikoff comes from a family of people who have always grown their own food: Italian immigrants to Canada and descendents of Russian Doukhobours. Following in these footsteps, Sheila too, has always had her hands in the soil, growing food. Sheila grew up in Surrey, BC and spent most of her adult life living and working in Vancouver. For the last 13 years in Vancouver, Sheila went to school at Simon Fraser University, and worked as photo lab technician and a freelance artist, before deciding to make farming her full-time vocation in the Spring of 2011. Sheila began farming because she wanted to grow good food for herself and others. She didn’t want to continue working a day job that left farming to the side of her desk; she wanted farming to become her career.
After a completing the UBC Farm Practicum in 2010, and a full season at Glen Valley Organic Farm in 2011, Sheila will begin the 2012 season starting up her own business at Glen Valley Organic Farm. She is specializing in raising chickens for eggs and perfecting a salad mix operation. Sheila decided on eggs and salad mix because of the experience of previous Glen Valley farmer Alyson, who successfully managed these two specialties. “Having those two things is a nice balance. It’s been nice having that business model to springboard from,” says Sheila.
A Cooperative Farming Model
Glen Valley Organic Farm is a collection of businesses leasing land from the Glen Valley Organic Farm Co-operative and together grow nearly 50 different vegetables and fruits, as well as eggs. The Glen Valley Organic Farm Co-operative owns and operates the land cooperatively and has been in existence since 1998. Forty-five shareholders work together to ensure that the land continues to produce certified organic food for its shareholders and the local communities while its farmers continue to steward the land, wildlife, and people. This model of land ownership ensures that this land will be used for agriculture in perpetuity. This is where Sheila is choosing to farm, and here’s why:
“In 2010, we came out [to Glen Valley] on a field trip, with the UBC [Practicum] Program.” Chris, one of the Glen Valley farmers, led the tour. “There wasn’t anything remarkable about the landscape or any particular feeling that I got when I was here, it was just my first introduction to a community farm model. Chris explained a little bit of the details about buying a share and then shareholders have access to leasing affordable land from the Co-op.”
“That was the first time I thought I could farm in the near future. That it was something that was available, sooner, rather than later. Because simply, I didn’t know what was available before being exposed to this community or network of farmers. […] I guess the practicum was a good way to meet people in the community and get access to all this information that I just didn’t really have access to before. […] I just didn’t know if farming was for me, with not enough money to purchase my own piece of land and farm independently as a private landowner.”
“A community farm is a great place to start out because there is already established infrastructure, there is potentially access to markets, peers – onsite experienced peer support. I’ll be relying on them quite a bit.” There are other options for leasing land, “but at this stage, I see the benefit of farming with other experienced peers. And then just believing strongly in the co-op model in terms of having an alternative to privately owned land.”
Sheila’s Family Connection to Farming
Sheila believes strongly that her family history and her exposure to the land in the Kootenays contributes greatly to her work today as a farmer on cooperatively owned land. Her father’s side of the family comes from the Doukhobors, Russians who settled in southern British Columbia over one hundred years ago. The Doukhobors were remarkable agriculturalists, who valued communal life, communal land and above all, valued freedom. Beginning in the 1920s, their approach to life was actively repressed by the Canadian government, a repression culminating in the 1950s, which placed Doukhobor children in residential schools. Her mother’s side emigrated from Italy in 1956 to New Denver, BC and, as a family, operated a farm that provided the means for their survival.
Out on the farm at Glen Valley. Photo: Chris Bodnar
Harvesting magenta spreen. Photo: Brittany Buchanan
On her mother’s farm, “they grew vegetables, and had cows and chickens[…]. They were self-sufficient that way. This is a huge difference […] that wasn’t a choice they made. It was a necessity to grow their own food because there were no jobs where you could work for a wage. And knowing how hard it is, and knowing how high stakes are when you are a subsistence farmer…The perspective that they had was that if you are born on a farm, you get off the farm. Your job is to find a job off the farm. So people always wanted to have an hourly wage. ”
“And within one generation, I’m a person who’s become part of this gone-to-university class and I’m making a choice to grow food […]. The fact that it is a choice is really significant.” Sheila keeps in mind that small-scale subsistence farming is completely different from choosing to farm as a career. She sees this choice as one made from a privileged position.
“I’m motivated because I am interested in [the Doukhobour] lifestyle of communal living and farming. ‘Toil and peaceful life’ was basically their motto. But that culture was interrupted. It was shamed and people discontinued it because it was shamed by mainstream populations. It was physically oppressed by the government. That interruption makes me mad, so I am motivated by injustice on some level. I kind of want to pick it up – now that I have a choice and I can make these decisions – where that left off a couple of generations ago, where people were deprived of choice, by coming to a community farm that is not privately owned and the objective is to farm […]. I feel like I’m reclaiming my birthright.”
A Tip for New Farmers
When asked what Sheila would give to a new farmer just starting out, she provided a quote and some wise words of her own:
“Farming as a business is a wonderful lifestyle, farming as a lifestyle is horrible business.” ~Author Unknown
Harvesting fresh greens. Photo: Chris Bodnar
“Right now with costs being so high, land costs being so high, if you want to live anywhere near a city and farm, you have to have a solid business plan. Your objective has to be to make money. That might sound poorly motivated within a movement that values environmental sustainability and social justice goals, but it’s not. Your own labour has to be sustainable as well. You need to be able to make enough money to take care of yourself. Not a ton of money, because no one is going to make a ton of money farming on a small-scale, but you have to make sure you are making enough to take care of yourself. And to rest when you need to rest. Because you have to be able to go the distance, that’s what’s going to be sustainable in the long run – people who are farming for life.”
“I’m making the leap to be a business owner. And I don’t have those skills. I didn’t learn them from my family and I didn’t go to business school. That is a huge challenge now, figuring out how to become interested in something that so actively disinterests me, ie. business planning and financial planning…But I have to do it, if I want to farm. So it’s becoming a little more exciting for me to think about budgeting and planning because that means I get to farm.”
Valuing and Learning from History
“I think there’s value to revisiting the way my recent grandmothers, grandfathers, mom, dad lived, growing up on farms, because I admire it. And I want to emulate it […]. I admire it, I believe in it. I’ll be very proud to pull it off. I’m not going to say that it’s easier or simpler. You know, people want to simplify their lives. I don’t feel this decision to farm is a simple one. I don’t think I’m saying anything new here. I just want more direct connection with something that I need to sustain my life. I want a more direct connection with my food and I want to cut out the middle people. I’d much rather do the work of growing food, preserving food, freezing, canning food than having a job where I get money and trade that money for those services. I’d rather just do it myself. That would make me feel really proud, that I could take care of myself. There are things I could pay someone else to do, but I don’t have to because I can do it myself…it’s that thrill of being self-reliant.”
For more information about Sheila’s eggs and salad mix, please visit the Glen Valley Organic Farm Blog.
