Clearly, it’s working in our cities. Across the country, 12 per cent of today’s homes are actually condominiums. That’s twice as many as a decade ago, and it’s just a start. Condos accounted for an astonishing 20 per cent of all housing units built in 2008.
The reasons will look familiar to farmers everywhere. Land is costly, of course. Equally important, the time crunch is hitting everyone.
Now, after 30 years in realty and architectural businesses on Vancouver Island Garry Bentham thinks condominiums — or “agriminiums,” as he calls them — have a big future in farming too.
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It’s such a new concept, it needs its own vocabulary, starting with “strata-farm,” the term that Bentham has coined to describe the 90-acre prototype on the island that he’s in the process of obtaining planning permission for, and that he expects will be home and workplace for 28 families (i.e. “resident proprietors”) in the next couple years.
Bentham’s strata-farm is like a commune for capitalists. Or you could think of it the way he does, as a franchise operation for well-off people who want to get out of the rat race, but who also want to get wealthier.
Bentham is planning every square inch of the strata-farm’s 90 acres, including the homes for the 28 farmers who will cooperate on the commodities they produce, process and market. Each family will live on the main floor of their own residence. The basement, meanwhile, will be given over to bulk storage and pre-processing equipment for the strata-farm’s crops, ranging from blueberries to grapes.
The houses will have kitchens, but those kitchens will be used for baking and processing, not really for the residents. Instead, the farmers will mainly eat in a large cafeteria. (Why would anyone want to eat in a cafeteria? Bentham points to Google and other major corporations that offer free on-site dining as a major perq for employees.)
Every step of crop production, processing and marketing will be guided by a copywrighted technical manual. Products will also be branded so that as the strata-farms diversify and spread first across British Columbia, and then potentially into Ontario and to points beyond, consumers across the country will learn exactly what to expect from Strata-farm products.
“It’s like Tim Horton’s or any other franchise,” Bentham says. “If you don’t adhere to the manual and maintain quality, you lose the right to produce.”
Management is modeled on condominium agreements, where residents elect representatives to make decisions for the entire building, and where they also agree to live up to a wide range of terms and conditions. In this case, the terms and conditions are just a bit different, including a requirement to work on the farm.
Again the question comes up: Why would anyone want to sign such an agreement, especially since Bentham is looking to launch his first strata-farm with lawyers and other professionals who are taking early retirement so they can live their golden years on the land? (He needs professionals, or possibly mainstream farmers who want to semi-retire, because buying into the strata-farm won’t be cheap.)
Bentham has an answer.
Before he had his eureka moment, he spent six years talking to such professionals about why their visions of running a Vancouver Island winery or a thriving fruit and vegetable business were turning sour.
Bentham listened hard. So often, it was the same story. The would-be farmers retired early with a bag of money from a professional career and launched their dream farms. The first year, they’d work long, fulfilling days and they’d learn. The second year, they’d build on that foundation, becoming masters at crop production.
By the fifth year, consumers would be beating a path to their door. Everything should have been perfect. But that’s exactly when the farm would hit a brick wall.
Instead of eight-hour days, the farmer would be doing both marketing and production, simultaneously, working days that would stretch 12 and 14 hours and more, day after day, having to deal with marketing problems when they should be in the field, and with field problems when they should be marketing, and never getting any of the jobs done the way they want to. Frustrations would grow, the dream would turn to a nightmare, and in a year it would collapse.
Bentham, now figures the dream was the one part of the plan that was right. It just wasn’t far enought out there, unlike his agri-minium concept. CG
