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o- - . I'HE PORT PERRY STAR - v eee FARM & COUNTRY LIFE TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 1995 - 3 Small is beautiful at the Reid's organic farming operations By Stephen Leahy Special to Farm and Country Life HE EXPERTS claim the only way to succeed in farming these days to to get bigger -- add more acr- es, crops, animals and machinery. Recent statistics back this up with the average farm size in Canada going from 237 acres in 1941 to close to 600 acres today. Well, the Reid farm on Scugog's eight concession is headed in the other direction. They're getting smaller. And smaller by choice, not the banks. Bill Reid says it was quite an adjustment to drop down to a 30-hp tractor after so many years riding atop 100 horses. But he likes the bottom line: "We bought it brand new and paid for it in cash." Bill and Penny Reid got all that cash by selling all of their equipment -- tractors, combines, planters -- they'd been using on their 200 acre farm. Of course, you don't need a lot of machinery with only five acres under cultivation. The Reids aren't getting out of farming. "We'd do any- thing to keep farming," says Penny. But they have radi- cally changed the way they farm, by going into organic vegetables in 1990. They're one of only 3,000 growers in the world meeting the rigorous standards for certification by the Organic Crop Improvement Association (OCIA). The Reids sell their produce at the farmgate, at local food-co-ops and to wholesalers specializing in organics. The Reids bought their Scugog farm in 1978. It had been planted in 50 acres of strawberries and 25 of rasp- berries and another 75 in grains. While interested in organic growing even back then, a heavy mortgage load forced the Reids to use chemical pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers to get the most crop with the least risk. "We became trapped in the cycle of chemical use," recalls Penny. Every year the pesticides and fertilizers became more expensive but their yields remained the same and their gross income fluctuated. They began noticing their light, sandy soil was devoid of earthworms and wondered if this was evidence of an unbalanced ecosystem. Then, in 1981, Penny came down with toxic hepatitis as a result of the sprays used on the berries. When the Reids stopped spraying, they were forced to get out of the berry business. Their Pick Your Own cus- tomers, and the public in general, was used to large ber- ries in weed and insect free patches that only spraying can guarantee. Many of their customers went to neighbor's patches, says Penny. Today, some 14 years later, while the berries are still weed-free, the farm is for sale and their neighbor is dying from an incurable illness. The Reids then jumped into hogs with 250 farrow to finish, and milked 24 Jerseys and ran 32 Herefords. All at the same time. The idea was to spread the risk but the workload was intense. And as Bill says, "it seemed every dime you made you gave to someone else." "My pencil would not give me a method to make money farm- ing," he says. Then, just before Christmas 1988, Penny came across a small wooden sleigh for sale in a downtown Toronto store. It was simple in construc- tion and commanded an extremely high price. And the store needed many more to meet the Christmas demand. "We can do this," Penny recalls thinking at the time, even though neither had done any woodworking before. A small woodworking business was born and soon the animals were sold and the farm was put into hay. We began to take only one cut of hay allowing for natu- ral composting and regeneration of the soil," says Penny. For two or three years they suffered through insect infes- tation because of the "Imbalances caused by the chemical destruction of the good bugs" -- the ones that eat the crop eating insects. Slowly the earthworms, birds and other wildlife came back and last year they received the OCIA certification. Not only did their farm have to be chemical free for at least three years, their neighbours' chemical usage was also taken into account because of spray drift and run-off. Certification also required lots of paperwork, water and soil samples, and opening their doors to independent inspectors. But the Reids felt it was an important step. "There are people who call their products organic when it's not. It's a big problem in the industry," Bill says. One of the more sobering aspects of organic farming are the people with severe allergies, cancers and environmen- tal disease who come many miles to buy the Reid's produce. "It's very sad. We meet a lot of very sick people who need our food," says Penny. For some of these people even trace amounts of chemicals make them extremely ill. SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL - Bill and Penny Reid sold all their big expensive farm equipment when they decided to farm organically. By most farm standards their five acres is nothing more than a large garden. But good soil preparation and structure and with 24 inch rows, their productivity is extremely high. Careful selection of popular and unusual varieties can bring a good return. They employ the technique of companion planting where a row of plants attracting certain beneficial insects, onions for instance, has rows on either side consisting of vegetables in need of help from those beneficial insects. Timing is always crucial in planting. The Reids prefer to be late than early so their crops go in when the soil tem- perature is right, not when the calendar told them to. "Our seeds germinate in only three or four days," they - said. The quick growth outpaces most weeds and shades them. This reduces the amount of laborious hand weed- ing that is part of an organic farmer's life. 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