Homestead Organics has its roots on the Manley farm, awarded by the crown in the years of colonization before the Canadian Confederation, therefore a century farm on our country's one hundredth birthday. The farm belonged to Murray and Carrie Manley until they transmitted it recently to their son Stephen, the next in the long line of Manley farmers. Murray and Carrie still own and operate about 270 organic acres on three other farms that they own or rent in the neighbourhood.
Murray and Caroline Manley were among the pioneers as organic agriculture slowly took root in eastern Ontario. In 1988, they founded Homestead Organics. Their move from a large established dairy operation to organic cash crops was challenging and rewarding with lots of hard-learned lessons. They experimented with several organic field crops including sunflowers, peas, oil radish seed, corn and flax. Their preferred crops in recent years are hard red spring wheat, soybeans, fall rye, buckwheat, with an occasional venture into corn and oil radish.
The company offered seed cleaning services to other organic grain farmers in the area to help them market their crops to food manufacturers. Shortly thereafter, organic animal farmers in the area started calling for organic feed grains. Murray put some old farm machinery to work and learned the business of organic feeds. In no time, he was serving feeds to dairy goats, egg layers, chicken broilers, pigs, and even dogs.
The growth of the organic food market has brought us to an important milestone. On one hand, the regional demand for grains was constantly unsatisfied and the animal farmers where quickly running out of local feed grains.
Tom Manley, Murray and Carrie's oldest son, joined the
family business in April 1997 from a career in
telecommunications. The family
reorganized the business to let Murray concentrate on the crops while
Tom took over the elevator and feed mill. The golden opportunity
presented itself when the Berwick feed mill came up for sale. It had
been a community resource since the 1940's. The mill was purchased
and retooled through the summer of 1997 with the official opening on
September 7th.
Professional millwrights spent about a two months retooling the Berwick feedmill. In this picture, the receiving leg was moved from the farm and is re-assembled at the mill.
The move from the barn to a proper facility now provides eastern Ontario with the first full service organic grain elevator and feed mill and hopefully the much needed infrastructure to stimulate organic agriculture.
Such a major event for a family business cannot go unnoticed. The opening of the feed mill was also a major event for the organic industry in Eastern Ontario and for the town of Berwick. So a celebration was in order, and what a celebration it was. There were about 100 people including members and close friends of the family, neighbours, and friends of the organic industry. We had the privilege of hosting the Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the Honorable Noble Villeneuve, the MP for SD&G counties, our Member of Parliament, Mr Bob Kilger, and the Reeve of Finch township, Mr Floyd Dingwall. Please read on, we have here a copy of the speech made at the opening.
Finally, the business is open. Here, Murray Manley, Floyd Dingwall - Reeve of Finch Township, The Honorable Noble Villeneuve - Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Bob Kilger - Member of Parlement, and Tom Manley jointly cut the ribbon.
And now the change is complete. Murray and Carrie operate
the farm with about 270 acres of organic cash crops. Thomas,
Isabelle, and Yannick run the mill in Berwick to serve the organic
producers and consumers of Eastern Ontario and Western Québec.
Business looks promising with organic acreage reaching about 1500 in
1997 and about 3000 in 1998.