The Ruminant: Audio Candy for Farmers, Gardeners and Food Lovers - Drivecast No. 1

Episode Date: June 12, 2020

In which your host catches you up on things as quickly as possible, and then makes some calls.

I'm Jordan Marr, and this is The Ruminant, a podcast about food politics and food security and the cultural and practical aspects of farming. You can find out more at theruminant.ca or email me, editor at theruminant.ca. I'm on Twitter, at Ruminant Blog, or find me on Facebook. Alright, let's do a show. Hey folks, it's Jordan. So, I am actually in my van on my delivery route. It's Wednesday. Wednesday has always been my main distribution day, but this year it's even longer as I have... Well, so last year, 90% of my sales were to restaurants. Pandemic, pandemic, pandemic,

were to restaurants. Pandemic, pandemic, pandemic, pandemic. I was going to be effed. Pandemic, pandemic. I was going to be effed if I didn't do something. Pandemic, do something. I've always maintained a household program. Last year, 90% of my sales were to restaurants. Pandemic, do something. Pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot. Pandemic, pivot. I signed up 500 households pandemic 500 households and then I started to sell conversion rate conversion rate conversion conversion conversion rate no financial commitment conversion rate send out an email to like 500 households 15 orders 20 orders 25 orders don't have a lot of variety coming out of the garden not like what I was hoping for I don't have a lot of variety coming out of the garden. Not like what I was hoping for. I don't have a lot of variety coming out of the garden.

And so when you're trying to coax this squirrel over to you and you don't have very good nuts, it's going to be harder. I had a roogala. I had a roogala. Roogala pandemic. I had a roogala. And you don't have very good nuts. It's going to be a rough one.

And I imagine it's going to be rough for many of you. Some others of you are like killing it right now. And I have colleagues who do frozen pasture raised meat. The meat supply chain has truly been a little bit throttled. People love their meat. They can store it. People are freaking out. They can store it. People love their meat. So they're like, they're aggregating meat right now. I have got a microphone. I've clamped it to the little handle under my van seat, you know, like to move the seat forward right now. I've got a microphone. I've clamped it to the little handle under my van seat, you know, like to move the seat forward and backward. I set it up when I was parked. Anyway, I've missed you all. I've missed you all. I've missed. I've missed. I've missed you all. Didn't come through this year. Failed to get any episodes done in the winter. Had another child in

October. I've missed you all. Had another child in October. That has just been enough. Record my podcast. Hard on my wife Vanessa. Just didn't feel right or fair. I don't think she would argue with me about that either. My wife Vanessa just didn't feel right or fair. Those are my excuses. So here's what I'm thinking. An idea I had coming into this year. Cold calling farmers and talking to them for five or ten minutes. I might try that now. I might try that now. I have a stretch of my drive that's about 30 minutes. Cold calling a farmer. Cold calling a farmer.

What's going on for you with COVID? I'm actually scared to do this. Why don't we go next door to Alberta? Organic farms around Calgary. No, I'm not. Here are the listings for organic farms near Calgary. Okay, let's see. It doesn't, it's not going to be all organic. I'm not, you know, I'm organic. I don't know why I said that. I'm sorry, you non-organic folks. I want to talk to you too. I want to talk to all of you. We see, oh shit, Lone Wolf Farms temporarily closed. Let's chase down that lead.

Okay, I'm really going to do this. I'm really going to do this. And I'm really nervous. Again, this is way easier. This goes so well in my head when I think about such things. It's kind of weird to be doing right now, but all right. There's even a call link for their business. So this is like really easy and not very dangerous.

Here we go. Hello, Ben speaking. Sorry, Iayden speaking. Sorry, I better introduce myself. This is Jordan. I'm a farmer in British Columbia. Hi, are you looking for Lone Wolf Farms? Oh, I am, yeah. Yeah, the Google directory number is incorrect.

Oh, I apologize. It's not your fault. No big deal. Can you do me a huge favor, though? Yeah. Can you request an edit on the Google directory? It's just a couple of clicks when you click into their page. Okay.

I've been trying to get them to change it because it's clearly not their number but well do you have a message on facebook and stuff do you have a minute to exchange favors like do you have a minute to talk to me right now sure okay this is going to be the weirdest call you get today i'm a farmer in bc i'm recording right now i want to i want to say that i have a podcast for farmers i was just i was just randomly choosing a farmer to call to ask them about covid and how it's going for them and then like do you want to tell me in one minute like expand on that how many calls do you get for a lone wolf like a day um uh it's probably like three or four a month

i mean some weeks i'll get two and some weeks i'll get nothing um well that's got to be pretty annoying for you um it's not bad everyone who's called has been polite so i mean i think i think you should definitely be worse you should consider selling vegetables on the side you might turn this into a profitable side hustle yeah it's my work phone if it was my personal phone maybe but uh yeah all right well i'll let you go pretty quick here but you are are you still working during the pandemic? Yeah. Well, that's good to hear.

Yeah. What's your first name? Brayden. Brayden, I really appreciate your time. And I'm sorry for the bother at all. No, it's all good, man. And I'll make that request to the social media things. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day.

You have a good day. Bye-bye. All right. Bye-bye. That was kind of fun um i listen to better podcasters who are real journalists who would like really dig deep with brayden uh i don't i immediately just feel terrible about that i mean he didn't expect that call like but he seemed friendly i should have gone deeper i should have asked him like what he did for a living and whatever but i just didn't want to be a pest I don't mind being a pest

to other farmers but anyway okay lone wolf okay let's do a new search so that was Calgary lone wolf change your business directory change your business number lone wolf you're temporary temporarily closed I hope you're going to make it through I actually I hope this isn't COVID related or I just hope it isn't for a bad reason that you're temporarily closed. But I tried to get a hold of you Lone Wolf, but you need to update your business listing, it would appear. Where are we going to go next? Veggie Farms, Fredericton. Oh, Woodstock. I've been there so they're outside Fredericton hello okay well we're gonna go over back to Google Maps that was working for me Stryber Hill Farm you missed your chance to feature on a middling

mostly defunct farming podcast. So, shattered dreams, folks. Veggie Farms, Ottawa. Here is Veggie Trail Farms. Hi. Hi, can you hear me now? I can hear you better, yes. Okay, my name's Jordan.

I'm a veggie grower in British Columbia. Okay. I am recording right now. I have a podcast that is aimed at farmers. Yes. This will be the strangest call you get today. I'm just trying to get a farmer on the line who can tell me how it's going fine. My gardens are all planted. I've got four acres off of this site, and then I have about probably about a thousand square feet on this site of gardens. The stuff I pick every day is grown here, and the other vegetables that I harvest in the morning and then bring to the stand, they're all planted. They're all going just fine. I have a total of five employees. And so that fits under Ontario's legal amount of people. We've got masks for them all, and everything's going just fine. I've had to rebuild my entire vegetable stand. Like, we grow and vend it right here on our property.

It's a farm gate property. So I haven't really had a lot of problems. I have very dedicated employees. They're lovely, lovely people. We grow everything completely organically and stuff like that. So I don't really have any issues with COVID-19 is what you're asking about, right? Yeah, I'm just trying to get a sense of how it's going for different farmers during the pandemic. What's your first name?

Steve. Steve, this is Jordan. Look, Steve, I've ambushed you. You can kick me off any time you want. No, that's fine. I'm just doing some finished construction. We don't let people in our stand. This has become a difficulty for us.

So the lineup out front and the counter space, people want to be able to come in and touch the food. Yeah, of course. That's probably our most difficult part is that people want to be able to come in and touch the food. We went straight ahead and started wholesaling food off the property, local Ontario food off the property right in March. And that's allowed us to describe the whole situation to our customers in advance so they know what to expect when they come here. We don't have any migrant workers, so we haven't had any difficulty with that, but some of our suppliers, like we have farm partners,

and some of those people are having difficulties getting their employees for sure. have farm partners and some of those people are having difficulties getting their employees for sure yeah it seems if like the larger scale farms have a have have a huge challenge that we small scalers don't have i'm like you i have three employees so my my employment situation has not been a problem um although i've had more challenges it sounds like than you trying to adapt what how did you feel early on were you worried at any point during the from the start of the pandemic or was it pretty clear to you early on that it was going to be okay for you um no it's it's a constant worry just to make sure that we keep it we have to stop the spread that's that's what my main goal is stop the spread and feed people real food so uh i have to i had to get my stand open there was no sands of butts So I just put an extension awning all the way around my stand

and made a corridor, a six-foot corridor, for people to walk in and put a counter on the outside of my stand so they can see in the stand, they can not be in the stand. We're at the apex of two highways. They're both four lanes. People can see that I'm growing vegetables right here. I encourage people to grow their lawn, you know, that kind of stuff. That's the attitude we have towards it. So our customers can send their order, and then we'll email them back to say it's ready.

So are you finding, like, is there a percentage of customers, you say that people love to touch food, you know, and experience it before they buy it. Do you get any customers who ask for the employee to bring it over so they can look at it first, or is everyone kind of falling in line? I've been so busy. Usually my wife is there helping me with the gardens, but we opened up the stand right away as soon as we could. As soon as I finished getting it built, and it's only partly built, I've got a construction guy here with me today,

and we're just finishing up the rest of it she's been here I would you'd have to refer to her but I don't I don't think that they want to see it like I have I the only thing I have in season right now is asparagus really strawberries will start day after tomorrow and and and so our season is just getting going so i can't really answer that question i know that we put the asparagus out where people can see it but we ask them not to touch it you can look at it and then pick the one you want i'm just setting up some shelving that they can visually see from a little bit closer in behind the counter on the one on one side of my stand sort of thing if that makes any sense It's complicated to explain on a phone, but they'll want to touch it.

They'll want to get the specific size. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, for sure. They want to handle the food, and I can't let them handle the food. So that's going to be politics, really. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, we're just talking politics. It's like you have to explain to a person that I,

I, I refuse to, I refuse to let continue the spread. I have to check it right here. My employees are all, we, we take our temperatures on a regular basis. You know,

we make sure we're not sick. We, we, we don't want to pass. And we don't want it passed on to us either. Yeah. Oh, you know what?

This is one of the first calls i've made uh this way and uh it's really refreshing to first you know to chat with a farmer who a is is doing okay during this and is also clearly um really taking the threat seriously which is like really great to hear oh well we all have to remain optimistic i mean we are gonna pass this it will pass and and and and we have to remain optimistic but we can't we can't continue this but it just brings me to tears to watch our our health care workers working for no reason at all yeah i know uh yeah i mean they're doing a great job and if we don't if we don't help them they they they will collapse they're at the brink of collapse now i have a lot of doctors and

nurses and stuff like that that come by at least not that far from a hospital, the Queensway Calvin Hospital here in Ottawa. And they come, and you can see it on their faces. They're stressed to the maximum that they can be stressed. If we don't stop this for them, then we're going to have a problem. So remain optimistic. I mean, my customers, they're lovely people. These are lovely people. These are people that want to eat organic food. People that understand community is, is the only thing that saves us. You said your name is Steve, right?

Yeah. Steve, it was a pleasure to talk to you. Cheers. Have a great day. You too. Bye-bye. Okay. Bye-bye. Oh, Steve in Ottawa. That was awesome. Um, folks. I don't know how you heard that. Well, first of all, I think the sound's going to be bad, but that's not what I meant. I'm a little nervous still. So I wasn't asking, I wasn't being a very good interviewer, but I'll get better. This has actually started out more enjoyable than I thought it might. Sorry, actually, I thought it was going to be awesome in theory. And then in practice, I was really chicken to do it. But that was kind of fun. Brayden and Steve really, really eased me into this really nurtured this experience for me, which only bodes well for my future motivation. So I don't know how you'll feel about that,

because you may think this is the stupid podcast, stupidest podcast format you've ever heard, but we're going to keep going. You have reached. Jerome. Please leave your message after the tone. After leaving a message, you can hang up or press pound for more options. CSA program Winnipeg. Community supported agriculture Winnipeg. Community supported agriculture Winnipeg. Community supported agriculture Kamloops. Camloops. Community supported agriculture. Camloops. Camloops is where I'm from. It's a small city of 80,000. A little bit kind of northwest of here. Farms around Vancouver. Farms around Vancouver. Here is some information about Vancouver.

I don't need any information. I don't care. Farms around Vancouver. Farms! Around! Vancouver! Here are the listings for farms near Vancouver. Thank you for calling the Center for Sustainable Food Systems at the UBC Farm. Our office hours are 9-5, Mondays to Fridays. You can find out more at ubcfarm.ubc.ca.

It's Wednesday at 11am. Thank you for calling Maplewood Farm. Please press 1 for hours of operation and location. Please press 2 to speak to our front desk. I'm almost in. location please press 2 to speak to our front desk. I'm almost it. Hi it's Janie I've missed your call. I tend to not check my voicemail very often so if you are leaving one I would also suggest that you send a text or try calling. I can't share people's last names to her. Don't do that. Thank you for calling North Shore Neighborhood House.

You can order to send your number of this entry, now. All these, like, big farms with... I don't understand. All right. I can't get your call right now. Please leave a message. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Soil food farm's not sticking so so i'm gonna actually uh pass this off for the time being

because uh i'm not the farmer okay i'm just the admin guy so i'm not really the best person for you to talk to and and uh but if you'd like maybe you could send me an email and and i can direct you to the right person uh yeah i'll totally jerome hey jordan how are you doing good can you hear me okay yeah yeah are you driving yes i'm also recording right now you're being recorded okay uh i i'm randomly calling farmers to like ask them how it's going during the pandemic okay the farms doing good the sales are not perfect but but now they're picking up a bit yeah it's it's not easy the farmers market restarted and I decided not to do them. Yeah.

Because there's well limited space and I don't have that much stuff. And you mean, you mean you don't have that much stuff yet, right? I don't have that much stuff yet and there will be more stuff, but the restaurants are picking up. So I want to keep the stuff for them more than bringing it to market. And the logistics of the market is a little tricky um you're only letting a certain amount of people at a time and there's no browsing and the social aspect of it's not there and um people can't really choose their things well they can choose but everything has to be packaged and so it's kind of it's kind of trickier and then the disposable aspect of the

farmer's market was already getting to me in the last few years like packing everything in basically single-use plastics could be multi-use but most people you know they open their bag of lettuce and then they throw out the bag and that was kind of bugging me and uh this is giving me another excuse of not doing it this year so can you let's go into a bit more detail um how does it work with the market during the pandemic like do people have to pre-order or can they come and browse but they can only browse items that are all wrapped up okay so until two weeks ago it was pre-orders. So you went on the farmer's market website, and they had each different farms had a page, basically, a web page through there. All the farmers brought the things over to the drop-off spot where they set up everything alphabetically for the clients to come and pick up, basically. Okay.

I didn't take part of it because I basically had nothing. I pushed back a lot of the stuff I was growing, the early stuff I'd grow for Farmer's Market and for the restaurants, which were were closed so I just didn't grow any early crops this year um and then two weeks ago the farmer's market restarted in Penticton and it's basically the same way it normally is but people can't basically if you touch it it's yours you can't choose your things like you point at things and you pay for it you go away i'm not quite sure exactly the details and how it works i haven't gone and i haven't i'm not planning on doing them until the end of july sort of thing so i'm i'm not i'm not too sure of the exact details man i would, I would be lobbing bunches of radishes at customers like footballs then. Yeah, it's, it's, that's pretty much how it works. I think, I think it's,

they, the clients can't basically touch your produce and, uh, yeah, so it's, yeah, I think it's a little tricky for that, but the farmers that are doing it, I'm sure they're doing great i know i know the um the there's more security at the market i mean there's more staff so they they limit the amount of people that can go in the market so there's only one entrance and one exit to the market and they limit it to 50 people uh 50 clients at a time there's more gaps in between the farmers they can't have tents touching so there's more space um and i hear like the first market it was really popular and there was like a two-hour waiting period for people to go in because people were it was too popular too too many people went to go because i guess the silver lining there is that the people that are coming are there to buy farm produce yeah exactly so so i'm sure the farmers that were there did amazingly i'm sure

that was really good for them um but for me i just don't i don't have enough extra right now for it there's you know there'd be kale and spinach yeah that's not worth it i'm not going to go and do market for for two greens where all the other farmers will have greens anyways yeah um and there's i have enough interest from the restaurants that are reopening to to you know wait basically yeah to wait until i have more stuff. And I also, yeah. So sorry, Jerome, I'm cutting you off. Cause I'm, I'm, I'm almost at my, I'm almost at my next delivery, um, household delivery, but, uh, I just want to touch on one more thing. So that was fun to hear about your market. Thank you for that. You, of all the people I talked to you like during the pandemic,

cause you're like a friend and colleague in my valley so we've talked before you were the most like zen about it all like you were like you know what i've got some savings i just started a new farm lease that i need to put a lot of work into i don't care if it's a bad year i'm not going to try and aggressively pivot i'm just gonna like if it's a bad year it's a bad year i can handle it and so why go to like crazy amounts of effort to try and make this work? That was about six weeks ago. How does your attitude compare now? That is still my view. Obviously, I've chewed through a lot of my savings with the new farm. I've had some bigger equipment to buy and, you know, cost of living and everything. But I'm still fine. I'm still, you know, of course, everything but i'm still fine i'm still you know

of course at the end of the year i'll have maybe less money maybe no money um but the sales are growing right now so i'm doing pretty good but i figured pivoting like my business model is going to work after this is done like this there's no issue with that the restaurants are going to reopen at some point and i'm not keen on farmer's market anymore um i you know to to move to a more direct to consumer pay online sort of thing that's a different business i don't i'm not keen on it you know if if this is the way we're gonna work forever I'll pivot next year basically and if it's not by then by then all of us who jumped in feet first will have plenty of helpful insights for you so there's another reason it's a good good approach yeah and I I think that a lot

of the people like you and a few of the other farmers that pivoted to a lot more direct-to-consumer aspects if the restaurants reopen in a more proper way you guys won't be won't have the extra produce for them so i'll have a bigger share of the restaurants basically yes i think that probably applies to some farms although since you brought it up like i've i've specifically structured my household program to pivot back like i didn't require i didn't require i intentionally didn't require any commitments financial or time commitments from my household customers because i wanted to be able to like move my my priority back to the restaurants which is where my where my heart is jerome it's where my heart is that's good but i i do think there's a few farmers that did pivot from restaurants to clients that

won't be able to pivot back same with the farmer's market that when the farmer's market reopened they'll move back to the farmer's market yeah so um i'm you know the sales are going to be tough this year but next year hopefully they'll be better and you know i the sales are going to be tough this year, but next year, hopefully, they'll be better. And, you know, I don't need to make millions. I just need to pay my rent and be okay. It'll be fine. That's awesome, Jerome. I admire your outlook.

So, we have to stop now. I was trying to get farmers on the phone all the way from Penticton and it didn't happen until you called me and that was two minutes from my next stop. But, uh, I'm going to cut out anyways. I'm on the back road towards Penticton and this, this is probably bad for the phone anyway. It's going to, it's going to get a little touchy on the backside. All right. Well, listen, man, thank you for the thoughts. And let's have a real like.

Today, I learned I don't need anything to live on except for a little old you. I've met a whole army of weasels, a legion of leeches trying to give me the screw but if we bury ourselves in the woods in the country we're no closer we never have laundry we'll owe nothing to this world of thieves live life like it was meant to be ah don't fret honey I've got a plan to make our final escape all we'll need is each other a hundred dollars and maybe a roll of duct tape and we'll run right outside of the city's reaches we'll live off chestnuts spring water and peaches We'll owe nothing to this world of thieves And live life like it was meant to be guitar solo

Because why would we live in a place that don't want us A place that is trying to bleed us dry We could be happy with life in the country With salt on our skin and the dirt on our hands I've been doing a lot of thinking Some real soul searching And here's my final resolve I don't need a big old house or some fancy car to keep my love going strong. So we'll run right out into the wilds and braces. We'll keep close quarters with gentle faces

and live next door to the birds and the bees and live life like it was meant to be