It will be one year since Homestead Organics moved into the mill in Berwick. The year was full of action, challenges and lots of lessons. This summer newsletter is indicative of our constant evolution. We hope that the newsletter is useful and appreciated. If you have any corrections, additions or deletions to our mailing list, then please advise us.
About a year ago, Homestead Organics moved its facilities from the barn to the mill in Berwick, becoming the first elevator and feed mill dedicated to organic grains in eastern Ontario. Among its achievements throughout this past year, Homestead expanded the market for organic livestock feed, succeeded in continuously supplying its customers all year long, opened an organic food store, and spearheaded with two partners (OCPP and COG) a recruiting program among conventional farmers.
Homestead is proud of its accomplishments and would like to celebrate its first anniversary with the organic community and consumers. We invite you to a Mill Fiesta.
WHEN: Sunday, September 13th - 11 to 4pm
WHERE: 1 Union street, Berwick, Ontario, (613) 984-0480
WHAT: Music and dancing. Children’s area. Games. Organic lunch
HOW MUCH: All activities except the lunch are free. The cost for the lunch is still to be determined. Voluntary contributions would be appreciated to cover a few direct costs.
WHAT TO BRING: Lawn chairs. Good shoes if you want to participate in the games. Beverages (alcoholic or other) and lunch if you do not want to buy our organic lunch.
HOW TO GET HERE:
East of Ottawa on Hwy 417: Take the Limoges/Crysler exit, turn south to Crysler. About 1km after a big curve, turn right to Crysler. Continue until you reach Berwick (next village). Turn right at the gas station. The mill is the blue building on your left hand side.
West of Cornwall on Hwy 401: Take the Ingleside exit. Go north on road #14. At the stop sign, turn left on road #12. Continue on this road until you reach Finch. At the stop sign, turn left and immediately right. Continue to the next village, Berwick. Turn left at the gas station. The mill is the blue building on your left hand side.
RESERVATIONS WOULD BE APPRECIATED, ESPECIALLY TO PLAN THE LUNCH
Stranex Terminals of Oxford Station had purchased and processed conventional buckwheat from Eastern Ontario producers for the last 15 years and has recently decided to withdraw from that market. Homestead Organics, Eastern Ontario’s organic grain company, proudly accepts the invitation to pursue buckwheat processing for the conventional producers of Eastern Ontario.
Each year, producers have shipped between 300 to 2000 tonnes of buckwheat seed, highly valued for its revenue potential, the convenience of late planting and early harvesting, its strong weed suppression, its low fertility requirements, its soil conditioning characteristics, its low maintenance requirements and its low input costs. Overall, buckwheat is an excellent part of a good crop rotation.
Although Homestead Organics focuses on serving and promoting organic agriculture, conventional buckwheat will form a valuable complement to our business as we already have the experience and facilities to process buckwheat. We also feel that conventional buckwheat producers may appreciate the contact with the organic community.
If you have or know of any conventional or transitional buckwheat crop, please think of Homestead Organics.
Homestead Organics has survived it’s first year and shows signs of a promising future thanks to customers and producers like you. With growth also come more challenges.
Foremost on our mind today is the fact that the market cannot immediately consume and pay for the year’s crop at harvest time. SOMEONE must store a good portion of the year’s crop. However, most organic farms have little or no storage capacity.
Homestead Organics proposes to build storage to serve the organic farmers of Eastern Ontario, but we need financing. We are seeking private loans of any amount with flexible terms and competitive rates from 5% to 7%/year. The loan is a non-secured promissory note, payable with interest at the end of the term.
The key investors would be the farmers who need space for their crops. Secondly, feed customers need to keep our grains stored in Eastern Ontario and thus avoid the cost of importing grains.
To reach more organic livestock farmers, we now have dealers offering our certified organic feeds at their location. The price is normally our delivered price, but some dealers may charge slightly more to cover the cost of transportation over greater distances. They need you to order ahead as the market is still small and they cannot afford to hold a large volume of all the products. Look for the dealer nearest you and please pass the word out to friends who may appreciate this service in their region. We are still looking for more dealers outside of our local delivery zones.
Le magasin du cultivateur, St-André-Avelin, Qc, 819-983-2331
Doug Brown, Granville Ferry, NS, 902-665-5044
Jim Beere, Perth, On, 613-267-7818 (I am still delivering direct in Perth)
Darren Earl, Addison, On, 613-924-2052
Greg Forsyth, Brighton, On, 613-475-5038
Don’ t you love harvest time? At last, an opportunity to reap the fruit of your efforts, get some revenues to pay the bills, salvage the crop before the rain or weeds wipe them out.
We love harvest time also, welcoming new organic farmers, long hours every day to handle the sudden rush in volume, the cleaner working in high gear with a great flow of weed seeds coming out the side!
Be sure to call a few days ahead of delivery in order to schedule a bin space. Most cereals are going into storage for livestock feed over the year, so we ask you for some flexibility on the payment terms.
The 1998 prices we had published last spring are true in general and signed contracts will be respected. Soybeans are holding high at $21/bu ($771/mt); feed wheat is down to $200. Buckwheat may come down to $380 or $400 because of strong world supply and problems selling OCIA and OCPP certified grains in Europe.
The harvest also presents an opportunity for fall seeding. Cover crops can help reduce erosion, improve soil tilth, increase organic matter, combat weeds and break the pest cycle. We have organic rye, buckwheat and oats available; organic oil radish and clover are due to arrive soon. In order to harvest a fall seeding next year, we will have spelt, rye and winter wheat available. You should budget about $20 per acre for seed. The ideal planting time is normally the first two weeks in September, but everything this year seems to be early.
Homestead Organics is continually trying to satisfy the sophisticated needs of our customers. We have several new items available now. Of course, don’t forget our food store for your kitchen needs.
An organic bird seed mix with sunflowers is a real treat this fall at $9 / 8 kg. An experienced rabbit producer provided a feed recipe with 70% alfalfa pellets: $14.45 for 25 kg. We have whole or ground alfalfa pellets, canola pellets, and flax pellets… all organic. We have some feed supplements although we normally include enough in the rations: fine limestone, coarse limestone, oyster shells, feed salt.
We are now retailing a botanical de-wormer for sheep, goats and kids, highly recommended by two certified farmers. We also have several books: Organic Field Crop Handbook, Why we do it: Organic Farmers on Farming, and Hemp Production.
With the new harvest comes a review of our feed prices. On one hand, the new cereals from local farmers are more affordable than shipping barley from Saskatchewan, but we are incurring some storage costs. On the other hand, we have run out of 1997 soybeans and must re-stock at a significantly higher price while we wait for the new crop.
Our price strategy is to maintain the current prices on low protein feeds to reflect the high cost of small feed orders, especially with delivery. We will average the higher soybean cost with the 1998 crop and lightly increase the price of the starter feeds and the turkey grower.
The lower cereal costs will allow us to introduce a discounting policy to recognize the customers who have supported us for several years and are committed to producing organic food for others. We therefore offer a retail DISCOUNT of 5% on all orders of $500 or more (pick up or delivered price and paid immediately).
The new pricing and discount will take effect on September 1st. The complete price list will soon be available on our Web site. Ask for it on you next visit to the mill or your next delivery trip.
Over the past 2 years, we have met a lot of people who are seriously considering organic certification. DON’T WAIT! Some certification agencies need you to register the year before. Take action now for the 1999 crop year by calling an agency of your choice. Although we are working with three different agencies, the majority of our customers are asking for OCIA certification.
We have registration forms for all three at our office:
OCIA: Bernie Fox, 519-443-6509
OCPP: Larry Lenhardt, 705-324-2709
Garantie Bio: France Gravel, 418-884-4197