LISIEUX, Sask. – June is no longer a month of drudgery on Debbie and Ian Miller’s farm since they went organic in 1990.
“We’re having fun now. We always hated June,” said Debbie, who said they stopped spraying their crops for two reasons – health and finances.
Her father-in-law was dying of cancer then. The Millers were suspicious of chemicals and reconsidered their farming style.
“We’d just sprayed for grasshoppers. We could see we were killing good bugs, birds and even a cat,” she said.
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The Millers were also going broke with conventional farming.
“Our chemical bill was five figures every year and our product wasn’t selling for that much.”
A dozen years later and the Sunrise Organics business allows them to relax and find time for off-farm pursuits.
Debbie is the former administrator of the Saskatchewan Organic Directorate. She is now serving on a national committee trying to establish standards, while Ian is working as a broker selling their crops and that of other organic farmers.
They also take regular vacations, usually for organics business, and have a sideline in real estate in Calgary. They have no cattle so once the crops are in, weeded and harvested, their time is their own.
“You’re a long time dead, so you may as well enjoy life,” Ian said.
The farm’s former chicken coop is going to become an English country cottage, said Debbie, while Ian has turned the barn into a woodworking shop.
Each year the Millers grow lentils as a cash crop and for green manure. They also grow an oilseed, which this year is brown flax, a cereal, usually kamut and some other wheat, and have a legume as a plowdown crop.
Debbie said kamut is their main crop. It is an ancient cereal that is trademarked and grown under contract. For seeds, they save their own or buy occasionally as long as it is good quality.
“We need good quality seed because we don’t spray for weeds,” said Debbie.
They see an advantage in growing several different crops because a crop failure in one won’t hurt the total operation and, because the crops ripen at different times, harvest is less hurried. The variety is also good for the soil, Debbie said.
And it’s not just the organic style, but the Canadian style to diversify. Ian looks south to nearby Montana and said, “across the line it’s all wheat. Here, it’s peas, mustard, canola, lentils.”
Marketing is probably the biggest change for organic farmers, who must use brokers or be prepared to invest the time to do it themselves. When the Millers went organic they used the same equipment but added a rotary harrow for weed control and started continuous cropping.
Ian said he doesn’t buy hail or crop insurance.
“I’ve been farming 25 years and only had hail two times.”
Debbie said Saskatchewan is one of the growth areas in the world for organic production, estimating that up to 1,500 farmers in the province have switched.
The province also has a lot more acres than most regions of the world, with farms up to 3,000 acres certified organic.
The Millers have 1,050 acres in organic crops, one of the smaller farms in their area of southern Saskatchewan.
Few of their neighbours have followed them down the path to organics and the Millers say they don’t preach it. However they do try to eat as natural as possible, even though they face a drive to Regina to get some organic staples. They buy eggs and meat from local farmers.
Debbie grew up in Moose Jaw and had much to learn about farming.
“I had to learn what all the equipment was. I embarrassed myself at a parade when I said, ‘what a big tractor.’ It was a large self-propelled combine.”
Debbie said she would like to see more small, mixed farms and a system that allows farmers to make money on less land.
The Millers say their community is young. They are among the oldest farmers in the district and are in their 40s. Their son, Dustin, who graduated from Olds College in Alberta, lives in Calgary but is home at this time of year swathing the kamut crop. Daughter Nancy, 15, is just back from two months in Mexico and getting ready for school.
Whether the next generation wants to farm remains their decision. The Millers aren’t pushing them and they think the kids are learning about a wider world because of their decision to switch.
Ian said organics force farmers to take a global view and “get out of the blinder thing.”
Debbie agreed, saying, “you end up with connections all over the world.”
