WASAGA BEACH, Ont. – As Geri Rounds goes about her chores, Pinky the white Alpine goat is feeling rambunctious, trying to tear the top off a bag of rabbit food.
“He thinks he’s a rabbit,” she said with a laugh.
If Pinky is suffering under an agricultural misconception, he ended up on the right farm. Geri and husband Ken are in the business of trying to clear up misconceptions about Canadian farming.
The core of their 137-acre mixed farm in this picturesque farming and tourist area of Ontario is a 10,500-hen egg operation. They also operate a retail outlet for some of their produce and that of other area farms and businesses.
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But increasingly, they are opening up their farm to visitors.
From school tours and birthday parties to summer day camp and drop-ins, their farm has become a living, working classroom for non-farm people.
“We both believe in educating the public about agriculture,” she said on a mid-October morning when autumn activities like scarecrow making and pumpkin carving classes already were in the works.
There is a fee to tour and she estimates that in just the second year of this agri-tourism emphasis, as many as 1,500 kids have passed through the displays, the hay maze and the animal barn. But it is more education than business.
“This is not a profit centre,” Geri said. “It is more of a community service. If we break even on this part of the farm, we’re happy.”
Today, Ken is out delivering produce to stores.
From various pens scattered through the barn and outside, there were the clucks, squawks, neighs, bleats and rustles marking the Rounds’ farm as a very mixed farm indeed.
The animal barn is one of the public faces of Rounds Ranch, owned and operated by Canada’s 40-year-old Outstanding Young Farmers for 2000.
From pony rides to egg collection and demonstrations of “a day in the life of a farm,” the Rounds are intent on spreading the word that food doesn’t come from stores.
“I think non-farm people are genuinely interested in how farms work,” she said. “And I think it is important that they do, so they can understand better when they hear stories about the impact of drought or whatever.”
Beyond public relations, the Rounds operate a farm where diversification and innovation are the rule, not the exception.
This year, they grew 20 acres of strawberries, five acres of raspberries, three acres of asparagus, 25 acres of sweet corn, five acres of pumpkins, a half acre of saskatoon berries and 45 acres of rye grass. Next year, beans and peas will be in the mix.
Down the road, she talks about the possibility of an expanded store, a fruit winery, perhaps a greenhouse and a system of using the waste to heat the barn, maybe a cut flower business and perhaps a line of manure sold as compost.
“There are so many opportunities around for us if we just had the money and time,” said Geri. “We have dreams but we have to take it one step at a time.”
She said one of the strengths of the farm is that they are not afraid to take chances or consider new directions.
It has been true since 1994, when the two University of Guelph agriculture graduates who had worked for years at agriculture-related jobs decided to return to the farming life in which they had grown up.
They found a small egg operation that needed some upgrading, bought it and expanded the quota and flock to 10,500 from 8,100.
Over the years, the upgrading has been gradual and diversification has been steady. The agri-tourism business is just the latest venture in a new direction.
Geri said it was that spirit of risk-taking and innovation that likely won the couple last year’s young farmer award.
They bought into the Canadian egg industry, with its expensive quota, in 1994 when the future of supply management was in doubt because of the world trade talks just then winding down. They exhibited faith in the future of the Canadian system.
But they also quickly began to diversify as an insurance policy, to reduce their dependence on a domestic policy whose political support base was in question.
Now, with another round of world trade talks poised to begin, they figure the diversification of the past seven years has protected them from fallout.
“We feel confident that we are all right, that we are well on our way to diversifying the operation enough to survive whatever the future of supply management is,” said Geri. “Besides, it will be a phase-out which will give us time.”
She said egg quota costs more now than a year ago.
“There obviously is some optimism there. We are too, and we like to be challenged. Me and my husband couldn’t see ourselves just collecting eggs every day. We need to keep trying other things.”
