Story by: Kate Petrusa
In today’s world, the notion of communal living and organic community farming may conjure colourful images of dreadlocked hippies, living off the grid in order to oppose the “system.” Mark Cormier recalls hearing perceptions of community farming like this before, and had heard this lifestyle described as having a “weird, super-hippie vibe where people sit around and sing songs all the time”. His experience working as a farm hand at Fraser Common Farm in the summer of 2011 would suggest otherwise.
Mark shares some thoughts on community farms. Photo: Brittany Buchanan
Fraser Common Farm is an organic community farm that has been cooperatively owned and managed for over thirty years, in Aldergrove, BC. This farm works collectively to produce food sold at Farmers Markets and restaurants, and distributed through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) system; at the same time, they work to balance food production with protecting the surrounding land and managing several communal and individual houses on the property. Fraser Common Farm’s 20 acre property is currently the home of 13 people.
Mark first explored Fraser Common Farm (FCF) as part of a UBC Farm Practicum fieldtrip in 2010. After completing the practicum and looking to do another season on a farm, Mark learned that FCF was hiring. After not hearing back from several other farm prospects, he approached this opportunity at FCF with reticence: “I wasn’t sure that a co-op was something that I was interested in being a part of. I’ve never been into community living. I’d rarely ever even had roommates in my life, so it was a huge step. I was going to have to share – not really my own personal living space, because I had my own space – but the property, and there’s certain things we’d all share. I’d have to accept certain things about certain people and vice versa, which can be challenging.”
Still, Mark met with FCF farmers despite his hesitations, and they were willing to take each other on. “They were super cool people and I thought the farm was really beautiful.” Slowly as the season wore on, Mark’s initial perceptions of communal farming and living began to change.
Ironically, even on a community farm Mark found the loneliness factor the hardest. “I had moved out of the city, to a community. And I expected it to feel like a community – a place that has to have certain things happen sometimes, that people would come down and have bonfires with me drink beer, barbeque and hang out…I wasn’t expecting people to become my best friends or anything, but I rarely saw people some days. There are 13 people on the farm, and I wouldn’t see anybody the whole day. It became something I was confused about. I didn’t understand why it worked that way, but after a while I came to actually appreciate it and understand why it worked that way.”
Slicing into an apple grown at Fraser Common Farm. Photo: Brittany Buchanan
“The thing I came to understand and like is everyone is doing their own thing, but doing it differently, and still living in a common area. I think there’s a lot to be said for that – people who are very different, being able to live together. I wouldn’t expect certain people to come down and hang out with me at the bonfire. But as far as the first while I was there, I had to adapt to the fact that people are doing their own thing and that I can’t always look to them for entertainment…I realized I was expecting too much of people that I really didn’t even know that well. I was expecting too much of what I thought a community was supposed to be…I realized I had no reason to feel the way I did and I completely changed the way I thought.”
“That’s one of the really good things about the co-op that I had the opportunity to learn…You get a lot of people’s opinions and answers and questions to things that others might not think of. It’s like having a big brain for a small operation. Even me, somebody there for just this one season, I had a lot of input on a lot of different things. In a lot of ways this input worked out really well. Certain things I suggested and did were appropriate…We all talk about how farmers need [to] share information, because that’s how you become a good farmer. You share what you know with other farmers and they share what they know. You kind of pass that information along. People in a community are lucky because they are around this knowledge all the time. That’s a big bonus.”
Mark found that the co-operative structure definitely allowed for being a farmer with varied interests and commitments, such as artistic interests and family. “Because we were all being paid by the hour, and because there’s no owner, you are getting paid for the time you put in.” This ensured Mark’s farm team was paid fairly, in a way that made sense when so many different people are involved with the same operation. “We could all help each other, in terms of time management. That was a huge bonus. We were all actually able to take small vacations, at different times throughout the summer.”
A couple on the farm really benefitted from this flexible schedule, in order to take care of their two children, 10 and 7 years old, with a third on the way. Both parents work part-time, and their combined hours function as a full-time person on the farm. “It’s so they can take care of their children as equally as possible, and also farm…they would work [in the field] together, but not very often because there needed to be someone spending time with the kids. That was of huge importance to them.”
Mark noted that many residents, even those who weren’t farmers, ate the food grown at the farm and many shared their miscellaneous grocery expenses. In one of the shared houses of five residents, the structure was “such that every night of the week, one person cooked for the whole house. You only had to cook dinner once a week in that house. There’s a lot of benefits to that. It gives you a lot more free time; you can spend more time doing your own thing. We had a blacksmith, we had an artist, we had a woodworker, a handful of farmers, a photographer – a lot of people who could afford to live that kind of lifestyle…They are able to do it, because of communal living. It opens a lot of doors for artists and musicians and writers”.
While being part of a community, Mark also found the space for diversity, individuality and difference; he really appreciated the ability to be himself in this setting. “I do not pretend to be something other than who I am…I’ve never been able to do that, it’s an impossibility to me. Every job I’ve ever had, I’ve been able to wear my own clothes, be who I am, listen to my own music, just be myself. I may not have made a lot of money, but I’ve always been able to live with my own personal principles. That’s always been extremely important to me.”
“I’m not on anyone’s schedule; I’m on the food schedule. My boss is the food growing in the field…I can say the Earth’s my boss and that’s pretty awesome. I don’t mind answering to her, and there aren’t too many bosses out there that I can say that about, that’s for sure.”
Leek harvest. Photo: Mark Cormier
This past winter, Mark relocated to his native Nova Scotia in order to explore land ownership possibilities in a comparatively affordable province to BC, and to be closer to family. However, as the 2012 growing season approaches, Mark has now also been in touch with Fraser Common Farm again to see about returning for a second season. In either case, he knows he will be farming again this year.
Despite the stereotypes of community farms out there, from his own personal experience, Mark has seen that these community farmers “are hard working people…they have been working since day one to save the world.” With farming start-up costs being so high, community farming is becoming a more attractive – and realistic – option for new farmers to gain access to affordable land. What’s more, community farms provide peer support, a built-in network and unique ways of learning how to farm while balancing other interests. For more information about how you can begin community farming in BC, please check out Farm Folk City Folk’s community farm initiative, and get started!
