Wednesday, September 12th, 2007
Homestead Organics Celebrates its 10th Anniversary
Catherine Thompson
Chesterville Record - Wednesday, September 12th, 2007
Touring Homestead Organics
From left, North Stormont Mayor Dennis Fife, Claude Delorme and Anne Marie Levesque, Mayor of Cornwall Bob Kilger, Homestead Organics owner Tom Manley and Wayne Easter, MP for Malpeque, P.E.I. and Liberal opposition critic for agriculture are pictured in front of steel storage bins following a tour at Homestead Organics in Berwick.
BERWICK, Sept 8th 2007-From its humble beginnings 10 years ago, Homestead Organics has developed into the major supplier for organic farmers in Eastern Canada. Last Saturday, the Manley family along with customers, suppliers and investors celebrated that success.
Today, Homestead Organics continues its original function as a cleaner of organic grains for human food and a mixer of organic livestock feed, but on a grander scale and with more sophisticated equipment.
Over 200 members of the community celebrated that success at an open house, plant tours and a dinner featuring local organic products at the Berwick Community Hall.
During the tour, Homestead Organics owner Tom Manley explained the processes and some of the changes the plant has undergone since its beginning, including the important acquisition of six steel storage bins, almost one per year, on the west side of the plant. Among the major developments were the truck scale and the shipping tanks, acquired in 2001, that allow the company to move more products out quickly. This year, the business brought in an additional rotary grain cleaner with a receiving tank above it, to help meet the increase in volume from 500 tonnes a decade ago to the current 5,000 tonnes a year.
An important feature is the system of laboratory sampling to verify there has been no cross contamination of organic grains by genetic modification or other materials.
Before the community banquet, Manley described the business's evolution. After switching from dairy to cash crops, Manley's parents had certified their farm as organic in 1988 and "performed similar grain cleaning and feed services in the old dairy barn until we moved the processing to Berwick exactly 10 years ago," Tom Manley said.
"Murray and Carrie taught us the business of organic grains, processing and farming," Manley added his father often served as an employee of the business.
In the early years, Homestead Organics was a very labour-intensive operation, but the processes have been updated with the addition of new technology and equipment, thanks to the support of private and government investors.
In addition to his parents, wife Isabelle, family and neighbours who are also employees, customers and suppliers, Manley thanked the municipality for "providing the infrastructure that allows businesses such as ours to develop and thrive" and the federal government for its support.
Among federal grants the company has received, are a $15,000 grant from the CanAdapt program of the Agricultural Adaptation Council for the electrical service, a $100,000 bank loan guarantee through the federal government, development funding from the Business Development Bank of Canada and export insurance from Export Development Canada and . a $15,000 research grant from the National Research Council.
Small research grants were received from the SD&G Community Futures Development Corporation and the Atlantic Canada Development Opportunities Agency.
The Atlantic provinces is an area where Homestead Organics is the leading commercial supplier of organic livestock feeds.
He noted the business has about $800,000 of infrastructure and to come up with financing, banks require about 50 per cent in equity from private sources. "Approximately 15 private investors have invested in this growing business because they believe in it. Many are farmers we deal with on a day to day business," said Manley.
Mayor Fife compared a comment from a news article that stated most new businesses don't succeed to the actual success of Homestead Organics.
Guest speaker Cornwall Mayor Bob Kilger related a sceptic's comment from the original opening. "This guy has a lot of guts. Does he really think this is going to work? Ten years later, I could tell him that we're celebrating a real success story."
"Organic production is the fastest growing sector in the agricultural sector. We all know that rural Canada and farming is in trouble. Part of it is due to the concentration of power in the corporate sector. Part of it is that everyone else in the corporate chain is making a profit with the exception of the farmer and the producers," said Wayne Easter, Liberal opposition critic for agriculture.
He said that during the 1970's, getting into organic agriculture was a challenge, because "the push was into chemical fertilizer and the economies of scale. For anyone to take on that challenge in organic industry you were looked at as the odd person out. To go down that path, your family and others across the country were willing to take on that challenge. That endeavour will hopefully continue to pay off for them."
Easter said most research and development funding goes into conventional agriculture, but one can only imagine where we might be if even 15 per cent of the investment was in organic production.
"As all Canadians, I firmly believe rural Canada is the generator of wealth in this county and it always has been. We have to ensure we have policies in place to ensure there's economic prosperity and economic opportunities in rural Canada for all Canadians. Tom, through his challenges and efforts, has ensured there's opportunities in the Town of Berwick for people who want to work in his plant and who want to work in the organic industry and want to grow organic production. You're to be congratulated, you and your family and your parents for their vision as well."
For his part, Manley graciously attributed the success to his family, staff and partners. "This celebration is a lot about you, our customers and suppliers who have provided a market for the products that come from many of you people also. The mission of any business should be to improve the quality of life of its customers. If your presence here today is any indication, then I hope we have helped provide an improvement to your quality of life," Manley concluded.