Yukon producer Sarah Lenart emitted a hearty, almost incredulous laugh when she was asked a question that most farmers would at least make a pretense of pondering: Can you make money in your operation?
“No,” she said instantly. “It’s something I’d like to see down the road but not now. Our business is at the embryonic stage.”
Of course, this also is a self-described farmer who began a speech to the March annual meeting of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture by asking delegates to broaden their perceptions of a farm.
Read Also
Alberta researcher helps unlock the economics of farming
Lethbridge Polytechnic researcher helping agriculture producers with decision-making tools in economic feasibility
A farm, she said, is defined in the dictionary as “a portion of land under cultivation.”
By that definition, the four acres of market garden production that she and her husband operate for four months a year in Dawson City, Yukon, is indeed a farm, the most northerly market garden farm in Canada.
Lenart, 40, spoke to the CFA convention as a member of the Canadian Young Farmers’ Forum. Until 2001, she had a free-range chicken operation in England but was driven out of business by animal disease fears.
She moved to Yukon and a new life on the frontier in 2003.
To say the least, the farm operation she described and the conditions in which it exists were unorthodox to a CFA audience mainly representing large commercial operators.
Her four-acre farm with five greenhouses growing vegetables and herbs for consumers and restaurants of Dawson City (a Klondike gold rush town with a population of less than 2,000 people, hundreds of kilometres from other communities), was carved out of forest lots and remains a work in progress.
The operation also produces nursery stock for local markets and landscaping businesses. There is a small flock of free-range chickens that produces eggs for local sale.
Lenart has dreams of expanding it to an operation that can produce dwarf conifers for national markets and hardy seeds for other northern growers.
But there are obstacles in her operation that few 21st century farmers would ever contemplate, obstacles that go far beyond typical farm worries about debt, markets, transportation costs, cash flow and equity.
There is the latitude, deep into Canada’s north. Winter darkness and coldness mean it is a four-month
operation.
The farm nestles on the banks of the Klondike River, but on the bank opposite the community. There is no bridge.
The only way to get produce to restaurants, stores and farmers’ markets in town is across the ice in winter or canoes and boats in summer. “Warmer winters will have a huge impact on us,” she said. “It has this winter.”
There is no electricity or running water. There is no telephone or broadband connection.
There are no roads into Dawson City for delivery or exports.
Solar panels, propane, kerosene and a gas generator provide some of the energy needed for the plants but they are limited sources. Water is from a hand-dug well and off-farm income is slim. So are expenses.
She said in an interview that while the farm does not make money, her family lives a self-sufficient life that does not require cash flow and does not include debt.
Lenart is an English woman thrilled to be living in one of Canada’s last frontiers, virtually self-sufficient.
“We have an incredibly good style of life,” she said.
But still, she craves more connection and more information to help her improve her operation and to connect with others in her northern growing endeavour.
Access to a hot shower also would be nice.
“And just give me a phone and I’ll be happy,” Lenart told curious CFA delegates.
Miles from nowhere, that will not happen soon.
Still, her speech gave CFA delegates some perspective on the challenges of the type of frontier farming that many of their ancestors did.
