At the age of 11 she transitioned from city girl to farm girl when her dad became a fruit and vegetable producer to supply his specialty grocery stores. Today, she is the co-owner and general manager of Luckett Vineyards in Wallbrook, N.S. Despite taking a hands-on approach to learn the business by working in all facets of the operation, from harvesting grapes to managing events and working alongside the winemaker, she still has a hard time calling herself a farmer.

With the help of her full team of expert staff, Luckett manages the 130-acre operation that includes a vineyard, winery, bistro, tasting room and private event space. The farm offers an amazing view of the Bay of Fundy, attracting guests to enjoy a taste of Luckett Vineyards while taking in the scenery.

Luckett has combined a commitment to quality and customer service to make Luckett Vineyards a producer of award-winning vintages and premier Atlantic wine and an agri-tourism destination that’s worthy of the winery’s tagline, an experience to phone home about.

As the winner of the 2024 Atlantic Outstanding Young Farmers’ award, Luckett shares with Country Guide her experiences at Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers’ (COYF) event, her team approach to leadership, where she finds inspiration for new ideas, and the opportunities she’s seeing for grape growers and Atlantic Canada farmers.

Country Guide: How long have you been farming, and what’s changed since you started?

Geena Luckett: I’ve been involved in the winery since it opened to the public in 2011, and I would say the only thing that hasn’t changed is that everything is always changing! Our local grape-growing industry is young and we’ve experienced a lot of change in a short period of time. Not to mention how quickly technology progresses in agriculture, the speed at which our climate is changing, shifts in alcohol and health trends, the acceptance of innovation, the list goes on. We’re in a constant state of managing and leveraging the changes. It’s exciting and nerve-racking.

It’s important to point out that our changing climate is creating new opportunities for Nova Scotia grape growers. In the short period of time we’ve been growing grapes in our province (around 15 years), we’ve seen a significant impact from changing weather patterns and extreme weather events. The silver lining is that our seasons and growing days are extending, providing opportunities to grow new grape varieties, but the extreme weather conditions have been hard to manage. In the few years I’ve been farming, I’ve experienced hurricanes, a polar vortex and late May frosts to name a few.

CG: Tell us about your Outstanding Young Farmers’ experience.

Luckett: It’s been an amazing, invigorating and eye-opening experience. To have the opportunity to be surrounded by so many like-minded people who bring so much expertise, knowledge sharing and different perspectives is something you don’t get to experience every day. My fellow Outstanding Young Farmers (OYF) are the next generation of Canadian agriculture, so getting first-hand access to insights and connections like the ones I made through COYF is truly special.

While we all came together from different parts of the country, I was surprised how much we had in common, even though our farm businesses couldn’t be more different. I admit, I underestimated the value of this experience when I went into it and I am so grateful for the connections and ideas I came away with. I encourage every young farmer to participate in their regional OYF and COYF, if you get the chance.

CG: In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

Luckett: The ability to dig in, teach, prioritize, delegate, spot opportunities, listen with an open mind and have the confidence to challenge the status quo.

I like a horizontal approach to leadership. That’s why I surround myself with people on my team who are experts in their field, and I rely on their knowledge and expertise. We foster a very hands-on approach with all our staff and encourage everyone to help and learn from each other when they can. I try to leverage and utilize the skills of leaders around me and encourage everyone to work to achieve a collective goal.

CG: How do you think your approach to farming is different from previous generations?

Luckett: Like many other farmers, my connection to farming did come from my dad, but I didn’t always live on a farm. I also didn’t go to school for agriculture, so sometimes I do feel like an imposter in this industry, but I truly embrace the “learn as I go” mentality.

I’ve noticed a little more balance in the leadership and management style with millennial farmers compared to previous generations. It feels like it’s more common now that farmers are really engaging in initiatives and efforts related to things like mental health and wellness, work-life balance and community connection. Also, because of social media, we have a greater access to each other as farmers and business owners—which can be a blessing and curse — and that creates more opportunities for idea-sharing, problem-solving, networking, partnerships and collaborations.

CG: What does farming look like today compared to when you started out?

Luckett: I’m working through my imposter syndrome!

Farming today means that I need to stay on top of trends, especially since much of our business caters to what our customers are looking for and following in terms of food and drink trends. That means I’m spending time researching what’s going on in other, more mature wine-growing areas and watching things like marketing and wine label designs, new packing ideas and styles of wine. An obvious development since I started farming is the low- to no-alcohol trend, and that’s something we’re watching closely.

Part of my research, including looking for new ideas for grape growing, winemaking and hospitality experiences, means that I travel. My husband and I love to explore other wine regions of the world that feature agri-tourism experiences like ours for insights and ideas. I get to talk to fellow farmers and business owners from around the world about their challenges and opportunities and bring new ideas home. Getting off the farm to travel and learn from others isn’t a new idea, but it may not be one that many farmers from previous generations made time for.

CG: Where do you see the agricultural industry going in the future?

Luckett: I think we will see the median age of farmers decrease as new generations become so much more connected and informed about where their food and food products come from and how they are made. And while food security and climate change continue to threaten agriculture, they are also highlighting opportunities for new technologies, artificial intelligence, sustainability and social responsibility that are all growing priorities for people joining the workforce.

The post An experience to phone home about appeared first on Country Guide.

Seventy-six percent of producers said extreme weather had an impact on their operations over the past five years, with 34 per cent saying they were significantly impacted.

In Nova Scotia, the last decade has seen an increased number of hurricanes, late frosts, drought, drier springs, wetter falls and a polar vortex. The impact can be seen across all types of agriculture and producers find themselves pivoting to meet the challenges head on.

Lisa Jenereaux, co-owner of Spurr Brothers Farms in the Annapolis Valley, says they’ve seen the gamut when it comes to weather and admits it’s been challenging.

As a fifth-generation fruit farmer, her family has grown apples and potatoes in the region for decades.

“Our farm has always been diversified,” she says. “If you have a lot of different stuff, then if you have a bad year in one thing, you can hopefully make it up with something else. It kind of levels off.”

She says that hasn’t been the case for the last five years.

“We’ve had losses. They’re more significant, and they’re affecting many crops.”

While the federal government offers some support to farmers, Jenereaux says the programs aren’t suited to most Nova Scotia growers, who are almost penalized for being diversified.

She says insurance helps but you can’t go back to that well repeatedly without repercussions, such as increased rates.

They knew they had to do something different.

• RELATED: Outdoor weather affects indoor crops, too

Go big or do something different

Spurr Brothers used to farm over 200 acres of potatoes, and they considered expanding.

“You either have to be niche, or big. We had to decide where to put our focus,” says Jenereaux.

When they looked at the cost to “go big,” Jenereaux and her partners (brother, William Spurr, and cousin, Katie Campbell) decided to look for something outside of agriculture.

They opened a farm market and began to make and sell hard cider.

The market was a relatively easy pivot, she explains. They already had a small farm market where they sold apples and other vegetables, and Spurr had been making cider as a hobby for several years. They built a new building, added a greenhouse, created public spaces and made it an attractive destination for families.

Jenereaux says it’s worked out better than expected in some ways. Not only have they created a hub for the community with family-focused weekend events, but if the strawberry crop ripens too quickly due to a heat wave, they can pick and freeze them for use in cider later. Before that option existed, the crop would have been lost.

She says they focus on ways to mitigate the worst of the impacts caused by weather.

For example, it’s important to manage the amount of water around fruit trees, because the root stock can’t tolerate sitting in water. “In fruit trees, we always do tile drainage. We’ve had more and more weather events with massive rainfall, and floods are more of an issue,” says Jenereaux.

To combat wind, which could easily flatten a modern orchard, all new plantings use a trellis system.

“We put the posts closer together, and every post is in the ground as deep as possible, no exceptions. If the post won’t go in, we’re getting the backhoe and digging that post in. We’re using more wires. There’s no room for error.”

Another change over the last few years is that now all the orchards are irrigated.

“It’s been getting a lot hotter a lot earlier,” she explains. “Spring used to be our wet time, but we’re seeing a lot of dry spells in May and June.”

In the past she wouldn’t turn on irrigation until July, maybe late June. “Now there are times in late-May when I’m thinking ‘I better get this irrigation going.”

She says water is always top of mind now when they plant a new field or orchard.

“You might have chanced it before, we’d have a couple of weeks of dry weather and then you’re going to get rain,” she says. “But now, you could go for four weeks without any significant rainfall. So, when we’re planting that’s our highest priority. Do we have a pond big enough, do we have a water source large enough? It’s not just supplemental anymore, you might have to water your crop for the entire season, and that’s a big shift.”

On the flip side is the cold. Late spring frosts can kill a berry crop or reduce the apple yield. While not much can cost-effectively be done in the orchards, Jenereaux says they use fabric covers and overhead irrigation on the strawberry fields to mitigate damage.

Long-term pasture management pays off

Jenereaux isn’t the only producer noticing issues with water. On Nova Scotia’s Northumberland shore, John Duynisveld, and his daughter Maria, of Holdanca Farms also worry about water.

Holdanca Farms is the 2024 recipient of The Environmental Stewardship Award (TESA) from Canadian Cattles Association. Duynisveld says his father started managing the farm with a focus on the environment in 1988 when he implemented rotational grazing.

And, while weather has always been a variable, he’s noticed how it’s changed in the last few years.

“We get extremes of dry or wet weather. In 2020 our rainfall levels were 25 per cent less than normal,” he says. “From June to September, we had a significant drought… by our standards.”

He says the summer was so dry beef and sheep producers started feeding hay in August.

It was the first year since 1988 that he had to feed supplemental feed before January.

“We got close to normal grazing, but we had to vary paddock size based on the number of cows, how much grass was ahead and to allow grass time to recover.”

It was the opposite in 2023. The summer was very wet, and the sun never shone.

“We couldn’t make hay,” he said. “Winter feed is typically hay-bale grazing. In 2023 we didn’t hay, but we had a huge amount of leftover forage on the pastures and continued to graze until February 7, until our first major snowfall came. We still had feed left on the fields after that, and they were back on pasture the 7th of April,” says Duynisveld.

He says the decades of rotational grazing and pasture management has helped build resiliency on his land. “It helps me raise a good product and it reduces personal stress.”

The pastures support approximately 25 head of his own cattle, around 100 ewes plus lambs, and he provides custom pasturing for another 60 to 100 head of cattle for other farmers.

Additionally, he grazes about 5,000 chickens, 600 turkeys and a couple hundred laying hens. Theres’s also between 150 to 160 pastured pigs.

But the effect of changing weather is about more than enough pasture to graze.

“We’re (also) seeing changes with parasite loads. In 2023 we had more rain, less frost and more parasites were able to overwinter. There was nothing to set them back,” Duynisveld says.

Increased summer heat is something Duynisveld also takes seriously.

“The last two summers we’ve had the longest period of heat stress. In June and July, we had two to four weeks in a row, versus two, three, four days. It impacts productivity.

“We’re changing fences and pasture layouts to incorporate more shade,” he explains. “Fields that are more wet, we’re looking at ditching and planting shelter belts with controlled access. The ditches cross the fields, and a series of ponds collect the water. There’s potential to apply this strategy to over 100 acres.”

On the flip side of dry summers is a delayed winter.

“Our winters are milder, which on one hand means we can extend grazing.”

Duynisveld says in the 1990s he couldn’t put a fence post in the ground after November because it was frozen solid. This year he could put a post in anywhere until January.

“In the fall, things are growing later. Our last 10 years of moving sheep, even in mid-November we’re seeing an inch or inch-and-a-half of growth. That’s much later than before.”

But he worries about the lack of snow cover.

“We were dry from early August to late November. The water table hasn’t recovered. We have a system and it’s normally flowing steady this time of year. Right now it’s barely a trickle. This is the flip side of not having the snowpack and the spring dampness.”

His holistic approach means he’s pivoting to adapt to the challenges by letting some pastures over-mature and go a little heavy. He looks at the other species living there for validation he’s doing the right thing.

“My daughter does ‘bio-blitzes’ to identify living organisms. We have well over 1,000 species, 140 native pollinators. Small changes help us all with overall resilience to the extremes in weather.”

Some like it hot

The lack of water and heat are a boon for some producers.

Back in the Annapolis Valley, in an area known as the Gaspereau Valley, farms like Luckett Vineyards are noticing the changes in weather too.

Vineyard manager Marcel Kolb came to the area 19 years ago from Switzerland. He’s noticed a change since he arrived, but says it’s gotten more significant in the past five or six years.

“We used to talk about global warming, now we look at the extremes, we brace ourselves,” he says.

Wind, rain, heat, cold, too much, too little, or simply at the wrong time, can cost a crop.

For vineyards, warmer weather later into the fall and earlier in the spring, extends the growing season. Kolb says budding starts earlier, and the harvest can run later.

“Now we’re hoping for snow (as) it’s a water source (to) fill our reserves and ponds. This wasn’t a concern 20 years ago.”

While the lack of water is a concern, the area where Lucketts is located is on heavy loam soil. Kolb says new vineyards must install tile drainage to protect the vine roots, which extend deep, from too much water.

“Two years ago, we had 250-280 mm of rain, and we couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. In 2024 we had almost no rain for over two months. Should we have had irrigation? Maybe. It might have improved the overall yield, but it isn’t feasible yet in the vineyard.”

Planting clovers, grasses and legumes between the vines helps improve soil drainage and nutrient management through organic matter. These areas also provide habitat for beneficial insects and birds.

While the lack of snow is an issue, extreme temperature swings are more challenging and harder to manage.

“The polar vortex was a perfect storm. Two weeks earlier we had warm weather, Mother Nature had started to wake up, then the cold air hit.”

The result was devastating. Not only did producers lose the year’s crop, but whole sections of vines had to be replanted.

Late spring frosts are a worry, but producers mitigate them with a variety of tricks.

“The buds are swelling then, and a frost can cause damage,” says Kolb. “We can’t do row covers because they’re difficult in a vineyard. Some producers have installed windmills or use sprayers. We have automated propane heaters. We can’t do the whole vineyard, but we can use them in the higher-quality areas.”

Changing temperatures mean a different type of pivot for vintners.

“Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen a lot of new varieties, such as Chardonnays and Rieslings, which are more adaptive to the weather and are better designed for our area.”

He adds that change can benefit consumers because more choice is locally available.

“These days you can get everything from sparkling to ice wines and everything in between.”

Kolb often thinks about where they’re headed in the next 10 years.

“Change is happening, everybody can see it. It (will be) interesting to see how we can adapt. We have to make crops more resilient.”

Weather data points to climate variances

The anecdotal evidence of hotter, drier summers, more frequent heavy rain events and milder winters is backed by data collected by Environment and Climate Canada.

Ian Hubbard, a meteorologist with the department, says the weather is definitely changing.

Data from Greenwood, in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, shows that from 2001 to 2024 the humidex jumped over 42 C 10 times. Three of those events were in 2018, one in 2019 and another in 2022.

“In a typical summer we’d have a couple days where we talk about these kinds of humidex values,” Hubbard says. “We’ve seen an increase in the number of consecutive days the past few summers. That affects people, animals and vegetation.”

Ironically, 2018 and 2019 also saw rainfall significantly higher than average.

However, rainfall was less than the annual average in seven of the last 10 years. In 2023, Greenwood reported its driest summer in nearly a decade.

Hubbard says springs have been getting drier, pointing out that 2023 was exceptionally dry for the region. However, in July of that year there was significant rainfall of over 200 mm.

“That was rarer than a one-in-100-year storm,” he says. “The last comparable storm with that much rain would have been Hurricane Beth in 1971.”

What really stands out for him are the number of named storms in the Atlantic Basin. This is where hurricanes form and while many of them don’t make it this far north, the area has seen an increase in the number of storms reaching Atlantic Canada.

The hurricane season runs from June 1 to the end of November and is at its peak in September and October during prime harvest season for many crops including apples, grains and grapes.

“In a normal year, there would be 14 named storms in the basin which would strengthen to become hurricanes,” he says. “This past season there were 18. The last several years there have been at least 14.”

Hubbard says while the numbers may fluctuate from year to year, they do expect future storms to become stronger, contain more rain and more wind.

Other extreme events in the region included the arctic blast in February of 2023. The area saw temperatures plummet to -25 C when a mass of cold air sat over the region for days. The extreme cold came on the heels of a week of mild temperatures. Reports show the rapid temperature switch damaged many crops.

Overall, Hubbard says the data paints a picture of extreme weather occurring more often.

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Keltie MacNeill is the director of sustainability and community engagement at Benjamin Bridge Winery and the niece of the founders, lawyers Gerry McConnell and the late Dara Gordon. She explains that Gerry and Dara set out to learn what kind of wine the land’s unique combination of soil, weather, sun and heat units could produce.

The partners in life and business researched and hired wine experts from Ontario and France and determined that their terroir (i.e., the environmental factors that affect a crop’s growth and development, and the specific characteristics that results from those factors) could produce excellent crisp sparkling white wines using traditional, Champagne-style methods.

But getting the winery up and running was a long-term proposition. From planting the vines, to harvesting the first grapes, making and then aging the wine, it took ten years to produce the first vintage. In the meantime, MacNeill says they released a low-alcohol summer wine called Nova 7 in 2008 “just for fun.” That wine turned out to be a big hit and has been the number one best-selling wine in Nova Scotia for a decade. Available across Canada, this wine is now a huge part of the winery’s portfolio and provides stability while they develop other wines.

In addition to producing award-winning wines, MacNeill says Gerry and Dara made it their mission to create a winery that would be sustainable and a positive addition to the community and landscape.

They wanted to become a “community-based winery.”

When the founders’ twin daughters, Ashley and Devon McConnell-Gordon, took over in 2010, the winery wasn’t open to the public, explains MacNeill, who joined her cousins in the business shortly after they took over. Since then, the twins have been “slowly and intentionally” building on the original vision. For example, they’ve expanded the winery’s programming from a small private tasting room to hosting many public events for all ages throughout the year.

Today the focus is on “creating a warm, welcoming environment in the Nova Scotia way,” says MacNeill. “It’s not about status. It’s about agriculture, it’s about community… the wines are world-class but not un-approachable.”

People first

The 170-acre winery has grown from a very small winery to one that employs 50 full-time staff and 50 seasonal workers. MacNeill says everything is done in-house from growing grapes and making the wines, to bottling and distribution. Sixty-five per cent of their ingredients are sourced from within an hour’s drive and MacNeill says they are always looking for ways to increase that percentage.

Although Ashley and Devon are in charge, MacNeill says the winery is run more like a collective with higher-level decisions made collaboratively by the eight or nine senior managers who each operate a department. “The small team at the top is in the loop about everything going on at the winery,” she says.

“They work on consensus-based decision-making with a lot of discussion,” says MacNeill, noting that women make up 85 per cent of the leadership team (as well as across the business), which is unusual in both agriculture and wine. “We will have very long meetings discussing topics until no one has any concerns,” she says, acknowledging that it’s not a management style for those who just want to jump in and get things done. However, she finds there is more buy-in, more autonomy and more accountability with this system.

Benjamin Bridge’s “people-first” ethos has been front and centre since the very beginning, says MacNeill. For example, to maintain life balance they’ve adopted a four-day workweek. They also supply a comfortable place for mothers to breastfeed.

MacNeill describes the winery’s organization as a “level hierarchy” where the gap between the highest and lowest paid workers is very slim. “Everyone has their roles defined but everyone moves where help is needed including the twin sisters who work in the business day-to-day, shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone else.” Their “open-book management” style hinges on a commitment to transparency, another value they’ve followed since the winery’s inception, she says.

Recently, Benjamin Bridge achieved its B Corp Certification, a designation that indicates a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability and transparency on factors from sustainability to employee benefits, community support, supply chain practices and input materials.

MacNeill says they chose this particular certification because “it really spoke to them” as a way of expressing their values to their customers, the community and their team members in a holistic way. When she looked into what was required to meet B Corp Certification, she realized many of the requirements had already been met but were not yet enshrined in the winery’s policies.

She says they also take pride in the economic prosperity they have created in the Gaspereau Valley, a small valley within the Annapolis Valley. “Those are 50 jobs that weren’t there before,” she says. And in a region with historically low incomes, this rural economic development also draws tourists to the region.

Community building

MacNeill says that for the past decade, the winery has focused on social values which include collaborating with community groups and progressing on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. She admits it can be difficult and overwhelming for a small business to find its way with DEI but they have learned you get there by having conversations and building relationships with the community. “It can be intimidating but the most important thing is to start and to start small, building slowly and intentionally with community resources. You’re going to make mistakes but it’s that active learning piece that’s important.”

As part of active reconciliation, the winery, has established a relationship with the nearby Glooscap First Nation. This collaboration resulted in a very successful Beyond Terroir event which was held for five years. And, through many thoughtful conversations, a popular wine has also been developed. The winery covers the cost of production while the shared profits support meaningful initiatives in the community. “We feel like we’re including Indigenous voices even though we’re not Indigenous ourselves,” says MacNeill.

Benjamin Bridge has also reached out to other community organizations, such as the Valley African Nova Scotia Development Association, through which senior management participated in anti-racism training workshops.

Building resilience to climate change

Incidences of hail, early and late frosts, droughts, cold snaps, and now forest fires have increased and are here to stay, says MacNeill. To survive the increasingly erratic weather, the winery is making changes to what they produce and how they produce it.

“Climate chaos is not for the weak,” she says. “Crops have to be more resilient and we have to be prepared to pivot.” Sourcing grapes from local growers spreads the risk as not all geographic locations will experience the same damaging weather. Changes to their production methods, such as non-vintage wines made by blending wines from multiple years instead of from a single year’s harvest, also “provides a little insurance,” MacNeill says.

“We need to be prepared for anything, to be agile and flexible,” says MacNeill, adding that they stay up to date on the latest science by participating in studies at the local university. They also ensure their voices as farmers are heard by participating on climate change panels.

Working together

Twenty wineries and about 60 grape growers comprise Nova Scotia’s small wine industry. MacNeill says working together by sharing equipment and developing growing techniques for the unique terroir of their region is essential to the success of the fledgling industry.

Annapolis Valley conditions produce great wines with naturally high acidity (Nova Scotia’s unique flavour profiles are recognized by the appellation “Tidal Bay”), but MacNeill says their growing conditions are much wetter than the dry soils of the Middle East where wine grapes originated. Techniques used to combat excess moisture include tile-draining the land, trellising systems that maximize ventilation and solar exposure, and spraying to control moulds and mildews. Development of hybrid grapes unique to Nova Scotia with better winter hardiness, such as l’Acadie Blanc, have also contributed to the industry’s success.

Producing the signature wines with the delicate flavours and natural acidity that the region is known for requires late-season harvest, in October or even into early November. “This is what put us on the map. That’s what you taste that can’t be replicated elsewhere,” says MacNeill. It also means gambling that the weather will hold until harvest is complete.

Looking toward the future

Benjamin Bridge is a trailblazer of non-alcoholic wines and an increased demand for non-alcoholic beverages means there is a good business case for producing zero-alcohol and low-alcohol wines. This also fits into their mission to be more inclusive. “It’s the fastest-growing sector of the market and a lot of fun,” says MacNeill.

Offering year-round events and drop-in wine service on the open-air terrace also capitalizes on the growing demand for agri-tourism, says MacNeill. “We have wonderful experiences that we offer on the farm for connecting to nature and to the farm.”

MacNeill says they will keep looking for the small wins and for ways to innovate. “Innovation is in our blood. It’s about continuous change. It’s about the long game.”

The post People-first winery plays the long game appeared first on Country Guide.

Today, there’s even more proof that mixing with other inventive and entrepreneurial spirits is good for business, especially when you’re getting your new venture off the ground.

You’ll be good for other entrepreneurs too, and you have a network, it can even be great for your communities and for the wider ag industry as well.

“Farmers are some of the finest business people around,” says 2023 Nuffield Scholar, Shawn Moen, who has spent 15 weeks travelling to six countries exploring different collaborative agrifood models.

“When you think about business decisions, there are few business people that I would rely on to make a good practical decision more than a farmer. They know what matters at the end of the day.”

Based on research, Moen says he sees a way to make that pay even more.

“Farmers and rural people are exceptionally good at collaborating when there’s a crisis at hand,” he says. “We need to start looking at opportunity through that same collaborative lens.”

In fact, collaboration has become one of the hottest topics in business schools, no matter what industry you’re looking at, so Moen — who began life on a south Saskatchewan farm, became a respected lawyer and then left that career to launch a successful craft brewery — has travelled the world as part of his Nuffield scholars research program to check out collaborative clustering initiatives such as business incubators, designated development districts, collective retail facilities and destination marketing initiatives.

Would any have a potential fit for entrepreneurial farm ventures?

To Moen, it boiled down to which are best at fostering a new trait called co-opetition. (Moen recommends Co-opetition by Adman Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff for more detail.)

Co-opetition, he learned, works by encouraging collaboration with people you might think are your competitors,

Business builders get together to swap ideas about parts of their business that aren’t ultra senstitive. Basically, they talk about their strengths, commonalities and differences to see how they can complement each other.

Not surprisingly, the biggest challenge is the human element. Co-opetition requires trust, and farmers in particular may struggle with developing these kinds of business relationships.

“The rubber hits the road,” Moen says. “How willing are people to collaborate? That requires some concerted effort.”

But it pays. Time and again, Moen says, he found that business startups that were able to collaborate were more innovative as well as more resilient in the face of disruption and external crises.

What might that look like in practice for farmers?

In its simplest form, it could mean getting into a network that lets you listen in on what others are doing that could help you. And on your part, you’d share some of what you’ve learned that is helping you in your own business.

“Perhaps there may be equipment sharing, joint marketing or bulk purchasing opportunities,” Moen says. “Maybe it’s just as simple — and this is something that is undervalued from a collaborative perspective — as being more open with your circumstance as a business owner and the ups and downs of it all. Understanding that people are going through similar challenges can be an excellent collaboration point in the sense of building some confidence and recognizing joint problems.”

A personal journey to collaboration

Moen, as mentioned above, grew up on the fifth-generation family farm at Cabri, and it was there that he began looking for ways to get beyond the traditional grain markets and the cap they put on farm revenues.

This led him to travel the world to explore different business models and then to open 9-Mile Legacy Brewing with his best friend and farming neighbour, Garrett Pederson.

“A couple of years ago, we made a durum wheat beer at the brewery. It was a pride point to re-imagine how we’re approaching ag value and encouraging people to think about the different products that we can make.”

Barriers become bridges

It takes more than a great product to make a great business, though. “Any time you’re starting a business, there’s a number of traditional barriers,” Moen says, who says farmers face a limited labour pool, distance from their customers and more.

And the usual way to overcome them is to throw more money in the pot. But maybe it doesn’t have to cost as much as we’ve thought in past

“When people can authentically, and in good faith, explore with their fellow participants what they do well and don’t do well and how those puzzle pieces might fit together, they need less capital a lot of time,” Moen says he found when he went out talking to successful startups. Their goal, he says, is “to succeed in a much more advantageous way than just chancing it with deep pockets.”

Starting a business still takes something unique and hush-hush. For the brewery, he needed to know how to build a workforce, create a communication system and develop an internal culture that would excel at innovation.

Somehow the two — the product side of the enterprise and the business side of it — have to come together, and that’s what Moen wanted to use his Nuffield scholarship to get more insight into.

Can the ideas of clusters, hubs and networks that seem to work in other industries work in farm country too.

If it’s going to happen, he now says, farmers and business people have to build it, not policymakers or governments.

“The great line that I brought back with me from Australia was, as you’re building these things, you got to actively remove the clutter from the cluster,” Moen says. “That’s not to denigrate the role of policymakers, governments, and capital partners, they’re all really important to get these things up and running. But it’s the people that have skin in the game, the operators that need to set the strategic direction because they are exceptionally good at knowing where their customers are.”

Moen says the way to get there is through the co-opetition model.

“It’s basic human stuff,” he says. “It requires trust, vulnerability, empathy and recognizing that this isn’t a zero-sum game and everybody’s up to this. It’s just a matter of making the choice to invest in that sort of relationship and with a longer view of what success actually means.”

The crux of Moen’s study is about the kind of communities that we want to build in Canada and how we can continue to advance our agricultural value industries.

“We can do that by courting large international players to invest in our provinces and they certainly have a place in building up opportunities of scale, but real diversity and the real contribution of GDP is in having a robust small- to medium-enterprise industry, he says, adding that collaborative business models can contribute to re-localization of economies, less dependence on vulnerable supply chains and improved food security.

“It’s about re-localizing opportunity for people at the end of the day,” Moen says. “We’re talking jobs, local service providers and providing aspirational examples to young entrepreneurs: kids that are looking at what the actual opportunities are in their home provinces. Having a vibrant small- to medium-business ecosystem has such a role to play in all that.”

– This article was originally published in the January 2024 issue of Country Guide.

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The federal ag lender on Tuesday said it will offer an unsecured credit line of up to $500,000 with loan processing fees waived, “to help producers, agribusinesses and agri-food operations with their immediate cash flow needs.”

FCC said it’s making the offer to both new and existing customers who are “experiencing financial difficulties, including cash flow challenges, due to higher-than-average input costs and elevated interest rates.”

While the Bank of Canada has maintained its policy rate since January, FCC warned in a March outlook that “additional intervention” could still be required to get inflation to two per cent.

Elevated inflation and interest rates are expected to slow consumer spending and business investments, FCC said in March, adding that if the U.S. Federal Reserve continues raising its policy rate, that could lead to a lower Canadian dollar if the Bank of Canada extends its pause.

A global economic slowdown has also resulted in lower growth in Canadian ag and food export volume, FCC said at the time.

Cost pressures in the “current economic environment” are difficult to pass on, FCC said Tuesday, and that’s led to “tough financial circumstances for some operations.”

“While the current experiences of individual operations within the different agriculture and food sectors are varied, we hope those who identify with these challenges will use this credit line as an opportunity to work through their current position and build back stronger than before,” FCC chief operating officer Sophie Perreault said in a release.

FCC reiterated it can offer flexibility to customers who are going through “challenging business cycles and unpredictable circumstances” on a case-by-case basis, such as through flexible payment options, payment deferrals or credit lines.

For example, the lender said last Thursday it would consider additional short-term credit options, deferral of principal payments and/or other loan payment schedule amendments for customers in B.C.’s wine sector up against financial hardship following “prolonged cold temperatures” last winter that caused significant damage to wine grapevines.

FCC said May 16 it would also consider similar supports for maple syrup producers in Eastern Canada following an “unfavourable change in temperature this spring” that shortened the maple syrup harvest in most parts of the region.

“This limited harvest can cause financial challenges for farm operations – not to mention personal hardship and stress,” Manon Duguay, FCC’s vice-president of operations for Quebec and Atlantic Canada, said in a separate release at the time.

“We stand by our customers over the long term, helping them pursue opportunities and overcome challenges, and this year’s unfavourable temperature has certainly been challenging for many maple syrup business owners.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Peruvian interim President Francisco Sagasti called the death of a protester a “tragedy” and told reporters the government would immediately investigate the first casualty in demonstrations over farm worker rights and wages that began on Monday.

“We do not want anyone to die in protests to defend their labour rights,” Sagasti said.

The death of two young people in Lima last month led to the resignation of Sagasti’s predecessor, Manuel Merino, prompting renewed scrutiny of the actions of security forces in the Andean nation.

Farm workers alleged police had attacked protesters to clear roadways and tame the demonstrations, which spread northward from the country’s south into regions known for vast fields of table grapes, tangerines and blueberries.

“The workers … have been attacked by the police who have arrived in great numbers to prevent them from continuing to block the road,” said Juan Herrera, a national leader of agrarian workers.

Workers from Camposol, a major fruit exporter, joined the fray on Thursday. Farm labourers from agro-exporter Talsa announced they too would join the rallies on Friday.

“All activities have been paralyzed, there are no harvests, there is nothing. Grapes and asparagus are going bad, we are in the middle of the season for these two crops,” Fernando Cilloniz, a grape exporter, told Reuters.

One of four members in the Trans-Pacific Partnership that has yet to ratify that 11-nation trade pact, Peru is a major global exporter of blueberries as well as producing grapes, avocados and asparagus.

Canada, already a free trade partner with Peru since 2009, imports $324 million per year on average (2015-17) in Peruvian ag products including fruits, coffee and oils.

Hundreds of buses and tractor trailer trucks carrying fresh fruit were stranded for the fourth day along the Panamericana Sur highway 300 km south of Lima, prompting clashes with protesters blocking the roadways.

Negotiations between the government and protest leaders have failed to reach agreement, though lawmakers have committed to reviewing a decades-old agriculture promotion law that farm workers view as unjust.

— Reporting for Reuters by Maria Cervantes; writing by Dave Sherwood. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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Jason Hanson expects his crews may only harvest five tons of grapes, including his Chardonnay and Gamay varieties, down from the 25 to 30 tons his fields yielded last year. The birds can have the rest, he said, as the fruit has likely absorbed too much smoke to be salvaged and would produce wine that tastes like a “wet ashtray.”

“With the dense smoke that we’ve had at the ground level for so long now, almost everything has to be affected or damaged,” Hanson said. “I have a yearly fight with the birds. This year I’ll just let them win.”

The historic wildfires across the western U.S., home to the bulk of the country’s vineyards and major producers of crops from apples to zucchini, have ravaged farmers and ranchers already hard hit by the Trump administration’s trade wars and demand disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic.

Atmospheric smoke has obscured grape-ripening sunlight while ash has coated green beans, cauliflower and other produce in nearby fields just days before scheduled harvesting. Poor air quality is slowing harvesting as farms limit fieldwork hours and some run low on particle-filtering masks due to the coronavirus pandemic.

For wineries, the wildfires have only deepened recent wounds. A drop in restaurant traffic and smaller crowds visiting vineyards for tastings had already been sapping key sources of revenue.

Many tasting rooms remain shuttered due to fire and smoke risks, while grapes awaiting harvest in storied wine regions such as Willamette Valley or California’s Napa and Sonoma Valleys may be damaged or ruined entirely.

Oregon, Washington state and California together produce about 90 per cent of all U.S. wine. The true impact on the US$70 billion industry will not be known for months as the typical wildfire season is only just beginning, and crop damage can vary greatly from field to field.

“You have a far greater potential for tainted wine the closer you are to the fire,” said Eric Jensen, owner of Booker and My Favorite Neighbor wineries in California’s Paso Robles region.

“We’re testing constantly and we believe in Paso we’ll be blessed because of the distance that the smoke traveled to get to us. But in Napa and Sonoma, the proximity is causing issues.”

Smoke has blanketed much of the U.S. West as fires have charred nearly five million acres, but some wine areas such as Napa, Sonoma, Santa Cruz and Monterey have been much closer to blazes than areas like Santa Barbara and Paso Robles.

Labs overwhelmed

Laboratories that test grapes for smoke contamination are overwhelmed this year, with some taking up to a month to return results, instead of less than a week normally. Vineyards use that data to gauge whether to harvest or not.

Winemakers and scientists are still learning how smoke can affect wine grapes and how the effects can be mitigated.

Australia has been at the forefront of research, as drought-fueled bushfires have riled its industry for years. But studies at American universities have ramped up over the past five years, helped by U.S. Department of Agriculture funding, as climate change is expected to increasingly impact U.S. wineries.

It is too soon to judge how the wildfires will impact 2020 vintages, but harvested grape supplies will likely be smaller, said Glenn Proctor, partner and broker at California-based Ciatti Global Wine + Grape Brokers.

Winemakers short of newly harvested grapes are expected to buy bulk wine from the 2019 season for blending with what is available from this year, he said. Fear of reputational risk will prevent winemakers from bottling and selling any wine with an unpleasant smoke taste, he said.

Ample supplies coming into this season should offset any shortfall from this year’s harvest so work-from-home Zoom Happy Hours will likely not notice any impact, he said.

“I still think we’re going to see some good wines coming out of 2020 because the growing conditions were great through the season,” Proctor said.

“The fires have put a question mark on everything but I’m still hopeful that most of those wines will play out.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Karl Plume in Chicago.

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The Salcheto story and his vision captivated me then. It drew me back 20 years later to become even more captivated.

Discovering the vineyard on his first trip to Monte­pulciano, Manelli was instantly enthralled.

“I had never seen such a beautiful location,” he tells me. “I was touched by what I like to call the floating of the area over time and space. You can never define it — you cannot say it is today or in the middle of the Renaissance, or we are in the countryside or the middle of the world. It is rich because it has been preserved in an incredible way.”

The old-time landscape and architecture along with the modern opportunities he saw in winemaking and tourism made him think it would be a great place to establish a life. His life. What’s wrong, he reasoned, with retiring in your twenties to follow your passion?

Romans were the first to grow vines here. Then in the 18th century, the term “Nobile” was coined in reference to the nobles who drank the wine these vineyards produced. Today Vino Nobile refers to the wines of this Tuscan district.

Arriving here, he had the opportunity to shape the business in the way he wanted — a business model that addressed all of his concerns. His goal was, and still is, “to make better — much better — wines while maintaining a commitment to environmental sustainability.”

His instinct for environmental stewardship dates to his childhood. He grew up in the countryside, bordered by an urban area of growing industries. His early memories are of running free, swimming in the river, being in nature. Within a few years, the river became so polluted that children were told not to get close to it, never mind swim in it. “This really bothered me,” he says, “because I had this great fascination with everything related to nature — its power and beauty. It still does. As an adult, I believe every one of us, myself first, needs to find an alternative way to look at nature.”

In 20 years, the charismatic young man with a dream had become one of the most successful producers in Montepulciano and a world visionary in sustainability. He succeeded in changing the paradigm.

The land, he says, was reasonably priced when he bought it. Within five years it had increased tenfold. “I was particularly lucky because the first years were a time in which the area boomed,” he says. “When you are in a booming field, you can make mistakes and pay half of the price.”

I think you can ask the question: how does someone who knew nothing about wine achieve such success?

“I learned about wine by doing it,” he says. “At first it was grapes. I didn’t think I was prepared to make wine because I didn’t really understand what wine was. So, I was farming. I just grew the grapes. But quickly I recognized wine’s magic and I started winemaking, selling it locally. I was lucky to meet the right people who were incredibly helpful — one being a great consultant oenologist who is still a friend and colleague today.” With time, and the knowledge he gained in terms of microbiology and oenology, everything began to work better.

Inspirational is the word that best describes his route to success. And, he says, “a lot of hard work.” In order to expand, he brought in two partners who invested and who participate in strategic financial planning. Operationally, Salcheto bears his signature.

Salco means willow tree in the ancient Tuscan language. Historically, willow was an important plant for vineyards as its branches were used to bind the vines. Today the tree is prominently represented in the company’s logo to symbolize its commitment to environmental sustainability. Salcheto refers to the stream which springs at the foot of the town of Montepulciano and forms the boundary of Manelli’s estate.

The organically farmed vineyard now covers 65 hectares and Salcheto wines, originally available only in Italy, are sold in 19 countries (in Canada, they are available in Ontario and Quebec). His 2015 Vino Nobile recently scored 94 points and sits at number 11 in Wine Enthusiast magazine’s listing of the world’s top 100 wines.

Between 2009 and 2011, Manelli rebuilt and enlarged the cellar, the enoteca (wine shop) and tasting/lunch room, and, seeing value in adding a tourism component, his plans included a small guesthouse. Using the most innovative, sustainable technology, he created a winery that is completely off the grid.

The patio outside the tasting room, for example, is dotted with large glass domes. They cover mirrored shafts, allowing natural light to descend 21 metres through two storeys, first lighting the cavernous fermenting cellar, and down to light the barrel cellar. When he began planning, there were people who couldn’t understand it, saying it wasn’t possible to light a cellar this way. Salcheto is still pretty much alone in this technology.

Whether the design of the new wine cellar with its self-sustaining energy, the benefit program for his employees or using ultra-light glass bottles (Manelli’s are the lightest anywhere), everything is done with a view to ensure a balanced environmental, social and economic impact. Salcheto was the first winery in the world to certify the carbon footprint of a wine bottle, and the estate continues to replant willow trees that contribute to the winery’s energy independence.

“The company can’t hide from these responsibilities,” he says. “If we don’t change our business approach, we cannot change society. Sustainability has not created more challenges, just different challenges.”

Quality, he believes, is also something you must really want. It, too, must be a challenge. “You have to engage yourself in it fully,” he says. “You have to feel this holy fire inside of you, of wanting to make a difference.”

Wanting to revel in life under the Tuscan sun, my husband and I spent several days at the Salcheto Winehouse. The 13th-century farmhouse was once a watchtower for one of the access valleys to the town of Montepulciano, then for centuries, the life-centre of families who worked this land. Today it accommodates nine guest rooms, adjacent to the enoteca, kitchen and tasting room where guests eat breakfast and lunch.

The Winehouse is set in its own garden, complete with a hot tub made of old wine barrels. The rooms are stylishly simple and modern with creative recycled elements and an obvious respect for the environment. Shelves and tables, for example, are crafted from old wood and you won’t find any disposable water or miniature amenity bottles here. The kitchen serves Tuscan fare from locally produced foods, including Salcheto’s own honey.

Manelli is as gracious a host as he is a superb winemaker. We spent an afternoon sipping a glass of Vino Nobile, on the expansive patio with a million-euro view to the perched town of Montepulciano, wondering if we had died and gone to heaven. The bonus came from seeing firsthand the passion for taking care of nature while enjoying the excitement of harvest season. In the background, workers chattered as, by hand, they de-stemmed and selected grapes arriving from the vineyard. We couldn’t understand what they were saying, but we know happy chatter when we hear it.

Current and future challenges

“Today, market saturation is the challenge all winemakers face,” Manelli says. “We are a very mature field. Quality becomes more important than ever.”

Looking to the future, he has two short-term goals. One is that in order to maximize economies of scale, he must increase Salcheto’s grape production. Given the current prices, buying adjacent properties isn’t realistic, so he has come up with the idea of a joint venture — forming a type of consortium with two neighbours, each with a small vineyard that neither was capitalizing on. Salcheto offers its know-how to optimize their production. “It is starting to work,” Manelli says, “and I like it because there is also a social value.”

He wants to enhance the quality of the organization to be sure that it doesn’t depend only on him, which he says is not yet the case. “I would like to think that Salcheto is Salcheto and not me. This would be a greater legacy to leave behind.”

As you might expect from a creative entrepreneur, besides keeping Salcheto front and centre, Manelli has a ton of side ideas. The most recent project was trendy eyeglasses, their frames being made from the wood of exhausted wine barrels. He not only wears them, he also introduced them at the 2019 wine fair in Verona.

I asked where the wine industry will be in 20 years.

“2040 is not that far away,” he says. “I believe there will be a big change driving the transparency of wine. Today most people don’t know if there are additives in the wine they are drinking and, if so, what they are. Greater consumer expectation for transparency, in addition to increasingly stricter laws, will require businesses to think before about this in order to remain in the market.”

He foresees a taste-change evolution. “Consider that wine was created in Europe. Then North America became the New World of wine. Given the size of this new market, wine changed to appeal to Americans’ taste. Wines became softer, and particularly for the U.S., they have contained more sugar. This, in turn, has influenced European wines and changed the taste around Europe.”

Besides the latest growing economies, we are on the verge of the awakening of at least three giant markets — China, India and Brazil. Increased consumption from these countries these will transform wine. Think about Asia, and the spicier Asian diet. Will this create a new expectation for wine and drive a new taste evolution? He thinks it is very possible and an interesting opportunity to monitor.

Manelli continues to see a promising future pursuing sustainability as a central part of Salcheto’s business plan, through which he aims to tackle some of the biggest challenges for the future — such as the packaging, and clean fuel for farm machinery. At the same time, he will continue to spread sustainability awareness.

Although his ongoing vision for Salcheto is creating wines that are rated among the top in the world and respecting the environment, you might expect such a mover and shaker to have a Plan B. For Michele Manelli, it would be to work for free. “I am typically curious, and I love work. I love the idea of learning something and driving an action to create something,” he says. “The idea of being able to do exactly the same thing without needing to make a profit — to do it for the pure pleasure, that is true freedom. Why not? Who knows?”

Is it any wonder that the young man who won my admiration 20 years ago, continues to do so today?

The post Michele Manelli — game changer in the world of wine appeared first on Country Guide.

For Sue Echlin and Vance Lester, that kind of schooling has been instrumental in their launching a fruit-growing and winery business, and in keeping it sailing.

Any advanced education is a benefit, whether or not it’s in ag, Lester now says. The hard and soft skills that a person learns in one field often transfer to other industries.

And there can be an advantage: “If you are educated in a field other than agriculture you will learn to learn in a different way than if you were immersed in only the agricultural world,” he says, based on their experience. “This can encourage unique problem-solving and out-of-the-box thinking.”

Plus, Lester adds, even on a traditional grain or livestock farm these days, it doesn’t hurt to have the flexibility that an alternate education and an alternate set of networks can give you, or even to have a Plan B, given the ebbs and flows of agriculture.

Echlin grew up on a ranch in Alberta’s foothills. Her family ingrained a passion for politics in her, which is why, after earning a bachelor’s degree in political studies from the University of Calgary, she moved to Saskatoon to complete a graduate degree in international relations at the University of Saskatchewan.

Her plan, at the time, was to become a professor. But that changed once she started her graduate degree.

“It was just too much sitting in an office and not being connected enough to the day-to-day realities of the world,” she says.

That’s how, after finishing her degree, Echlin found herself setting off to work. For a while, she worked as a temp, and it was while filling in as a receptionist at an environmental consulting agency that she met Vance Lester.

Lester originally hailed from Allan, Sask., a town southeast of Saskatoon. He completed a bachelor’s degree in biology, and a master’s in ecology, at the University of Saskatchewan. For several years, he worked in his field, as a duck biologist.

As time went on, Echlin landed a job in marketing and communications with the University of Saskatchewan. It wasn’t exactly in the field she’d studied, but her education proved useful. “It taught me how to write well and communicate effectively and research.”

Meanwhile, Lester moved into a human resources position at the University of Saskatchewan — the ecology of humans, as Echlin says.

“And then,” says Echlin, “we decided we wanted to figure out what we could do to stay on the farm.”

Starting from scratch

When people think of agriculture in Saskatchewan, what usually comes to mind are the province’s brilliant yellow canola fields under wide blue skies. But Echlin and Lester wanted to do something value-added instead of strictly commodity based.

“Being a ranch kid, I’d gone through BSE,” says Echlin. “And I’d done enough training on futures and options to realize that you only have so much control over your income as a farmer. Even with the best weather and everything else, you’re sometimes at the mercy of traders.”

A trip to B.C. provided inspiration. During a wine tour, they visited a fruit winery, and thought there was no reason they couldn’t do the same type of thing in the middle of the biggest grain-producing province in the country.

So they bought a farm near Perdue, a couple hours west of Saskatoon. The previous owners had raised goats, and those goats left a lot of amazing fertilizer, Echlin says, and the young couple dug into their work, converting a former triticale field into the orchard and planting about 45,000 trees for fruit and hedge rows.

In 2010, they opened Living Sky Winery, growing everything from rhubarb and cherries to currants for fruit wines. It was the second winery to open in the province, following only Marty and Marie Bohnet’s Cypress Hills Vineyard and Winery.

And, once again, their educations came in handy, Echlin says, as they set about researching everything from the chemistry involved in winemaking to government policy.

“The backgrounds we had in the sciences and social sciences were so important to have the ability to find the knowledge we needed to do this.”

Science on the farm

Sustainability is a big part of Living Sky’s brand — Echlin and Lester talk about it on social media and during interviews and presentations. The winery’s logo is a single duck in flight, which is appropriate given Lester’s background.

Echlin also thinks their focus on sustainability was a big part of the reason they were named national Outstanding Young Farmers in 2012.

Every decision they make on the farm is rooted in an ecological standpoint, she says. And Lester’s training as an ecologist grounds those decisions in science, leading them to protect riparian areas, plant willows to catch snow, and protect ducks and bees.

Lester sees how each farming practice fits into the bigger picture. For example, they seeded alfalfa around the orchard to fix nitrogen and provide bumblebee habitat, she says. “He thinks of all the systematic parts of the environment and how they fit together.”

Echlin says there is a honeybee producer nearby, and those bees are attracted to the orchard. But they also have “a pretty spectacular” wild honeybee and pollinator cluster. In the spring, the cherry trees are full of the honeybees as well as the wild pollinators that often go unnoticed.

“They’re teeny, teeny, and some of them will have a little yellow stripe,” says Echlin. They’re as important as the big bees, she adds, and she credits Lester with the healthy population on their farm.

Lester’s science background also comes in handy when it’s time to make wine. There’s no shortage of chemistry involved in winemaking, and Lester has a good handle on that aspect. They also have a wine consultant, Dominic Rivard, who co-owns a winery in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley.

That focus on winemaking craft has paid off for Living Sky. Echlin and Lester’s wines have racked up 16 national and international medals.

Navigating policy changes

Echlin’s marketing and public relations experience has been an obvious asset for the business. So have the networks she built during her work experience.

Her political science background has also come into play with the business. A large part of Echlin’s job in the last few years has been working with provincial legislators to change policies around craft alcohol production.

Some of those policies were not exactly conducive to starting a small winery or distillery. For example, when Living Sky first opened, they could only sell wine from their on-farm store or in government liquor stores. Farmers’ markets and private liquor stores were off-limits.

Living Sky joined forces with other early adopters, including Lucky Bastard, Last Mountain Distillery and Cypress Hills Vineyard and Winery. Together, they formed the Saskatchewan Artisan Wine and Spirits Association, which advocates for small-batch wineries, distilleries, and meaderies.

Echlin’s education gave her an understanding of how governments work and the process that policy changes must go through. She knew the different ways to apply pressure to different sectors of government.

“It’s a different world and the processes can’t be rushed. But you need to know when to push, too.”

Today, craft wine and spirit makers can sell their products at farmer’s markets, in private liquor stores, in each other’s stores, and online, delivering it directly to customers. The Sask Liquor and Gaming Authority now gives them a better markup.

“I can’t speak on the beer side because that’s a whole different world, but as far as wine and spirits go, it was the work of just a few of us that opened it up for the — frankly huge — industry it is now.”

Echlin is still involved with the Saskatchewan Artisan Wine and Spirits Association, currently serving as chair.

Big believers in education

Both Echlin and Lester are big believers in education, whatever the focus is.

“All subjects and disciplines teach you how to think and develop the ability to problem solve,” says Lester.

Lester points out that while university teaches students how to research, apply the scientific method, and process information, even the ag specialty doesn’t do a great job of teaching all the practical aspects you’d need to run any farm.

That means the ability to acquire hands-on learning will inevitably be vital too, he says, and it will be at least as important as a university education. But there’s this difference, he says.

“You can always learn the technical aspects in the field, but if you never develop the skills to solve problems and approach things from different angles you won’t succeed in agriculture or any other field.”

Echlin adds that it’s important to meet other people from outside your own experience or community, and post-secondary education can facilitate that. Their own educations and work experience continue to yield benefits.

Many of those benefits are related to long-term friendships. Lester still talks regularly with the friends he made during his days as a duck biologist, Echlin says. Others are career-related, such as Lester’s continuing work as a human resources consultant.

Echlin still phones up people she used to work with when she needs advice. She remains in contact with some of her classmates and professors. She’s also kept in touch with grad students from other programs, such as psychology and economics, as they all mixed in the geology building basement.

“Even though we weren’t necessarily studying the same speciality, I think just that experience of going through grad school was as important as what the specialty was.”

Echlin’s focus on international relations also gave her a larger world view. She traveled extensively and studied in Moscow for a semester. Experiencing different cultures made her think differently, she says.

“I would never change any of it.”

The post A different school appeared first on Country Guide.

As the season’s last straggling carloads of tourists packed up for home, locals were battening down, slowing up, tucking in for the coming quiet of winter.

Well, most locals, anyway. But definitely not Chris and Betty Jentsch.

After 30 years operating on adrenaline, willpower and undiluted ambition, the Jentsches don’t seem to have a slow gear, especially now with an estate winery to keep afloat, making 24-7 their way of life every day of the year.

* * *

Ambition and success have a glow to them: a shininess and heat that make bystanders want to step in close in hopes that something rubs off. Maybe that’s why I’ve been looking forward all week to sitting down with Chris and Betty. More likely, it’s because I’ve never quite shaken my 10-year-old-self’s impression of the larger-than-life Chris Jentsch.

I remember, 25 or 30 years ago, riding shotgun beside my dad in an old red five-ton flat deck we called Old Snort. As we pulled up at Chris’s cherry packing plant — a brand new, teal blue warehouse that seemed impossibly big for just one farmer to fill and run — I asked my dad why Chris would want his own packinghouse when virtually all of the rest of the valley’s farmers shipped to the local co-ops.

My dad glanced sideways at me and said, “’Cause he’s Chris.”

Then, he added, “No one works like Chris. No one can keep up with him. He’s either going to be the most successful farmer in this valley or he’ll destroy himself trying. Either way, it’ll be quite the show.”

To a little kid, everything about Chris seemed huge: linebacker shoulders, hands that could pick four apples at a time, a booming laugh and (reportedly) a temper to match. But it wasn’t his bear-like size or high-energy personality that made him then — and now — a well-known name in our little town. Chris’s claim to small-town fame has always been his work ethic, his stomach for risk, and an ambition and vision that skate the thin edge between the admirable and the outrageous.

That combination — together with the logical brain and calm voice of his college sweetheart and now wife Betty — have carried Chris through enormous change and volatility in the tree fruit and grape markets.

* * *

Chris and Betty waited for me in the office at the top of the hill. Though I hadn’t seen him in 20 years, he was just what I remembered: a little too big to fit easily into an office chair; a little too energetic to be constrained by indoors; a whole lot of graciousness and warmth.

At 53, he’s a tornado of energy. With harvest wrapped up just the day before, he’d jumped from intense manual labour in the vineyard to equally intense administrative and managerial catch-up. While we chatted, he deftly stickhandled phone calls, staff drop-ins and emails (300 so far today, he reported, courtesy of a wine club’s recent recommendation). The multi-tasking is a vital component of the success of their operation, even if the smartphone looks like a child’s toy in his huge hands.

Betty laughed as I suggested she join us. “Unh-uh,” she says, shaking her head. “Chris is the talker.”

And so, with the most spectacular of panoramas spreading out behind him, he talked. I couldn’t help thinking that the picture-perfect vineyard — each plant manicured, each row arrow straight — oozed romantic history as though it’s been in place forever.

In fact, this vineyard was orchard barely a dozen years ago. How that came to be is a lesson in industry history and change management. While some of those changes had been deftly planned over the years, others have been foisted on the couple.

As Chris says, “We’re here. We’re surviving. Like 10,000 other farmers across this country, we’re doing what we need to stay in the game.”

“As I say to my three girls, if you want to be successful you need three things: you have be able to recognise when you need to change, you have to have the capacity to change, and you have to be able to maximize the parameters at hand. If you’re a dinosaur, you’re not going to make it.”

Step 1: Take advantage of your youth

Chris and Betty come by farming naturally. Both were raised by orcharding parents right here in the valley, and they’ve lived the seasonality and the intensity of farming every year of their lives.

After dropping in and out of college a time or two (“We got two diplomas between the two of us,” Chris says of himself and Betty. “They just both happen to be in her name.”), Chris committed himself to full-time farming. Right away, he bit off more than anyone thought they could chew, renting and operating first one, then two, then a handful of local orchards.

But something didn’t sit right.

As Chris came to realize, the real money in farming rarely flows to the farmer.

“There’s this thing in me that says you need to value add,” Chris says. “Farmers do so much work but get such little return. You carry all this risk and do this incredible amount of labour yet margins are so, so tight. When I got into growing fruit in the late 1980s, I didn’t want to just send fruit to the co-op and let a board make all the decisions for me. I wanted to come up with a better way to add value.”

Drive through the Okanagan today and you’ll find countless independent fruit retailers, fruit packers, and fruit wholesalers dotted along every highway, lane and back road. Back in the 1980s, though, value adding and selling independently was a brand new concept. In fact, until just a few years before, it wasn’t even legal for independents to sell fruit.

As Chris and Betty got into farming, the industry started to test the concept of private sales. To the two new farmers, forging their own path seemed the obvious right step.

So, 25-year-old Chris headed to the bank with what would become one of many loan requests.

“When you’re young you can work 24 hours a day and it’s exciting. Banks are willing to invest in youth. That’s when you have to jump on making something happen,” he says.

The bank approved a sizable loan to build a packinghouse building and equip it with high tech sorting line equipment. Then Chris started renting orchards “all over the place” so he’d have fruit to fill up his new building.

Step 2: Swim against the tide

As Chris and Betty got rolling in the late 1980s, the cherry market was falling hard. The market, already heavily saturated by heavy planting, struggled under a glut of cherries caused when canned cherries fell out of consumer favour. Not surprisingly, farmers started to cut their losses by pulling cherry trees.

Chris started planting them. Lots and lots of them.

Talk to Chris for two minutes and you’ll realize this is a man with his finger on the pulse of the industry. His success is built on more than just understanding and reacting to his industry: he seems able to anticipate consumer and marketing shifts before anyone else sees them coming.

“The commodity price for old-style, June cherries was falling through the floor. But if you could get your cherries out late, like July, we could see that there was this window in the market that was wide open,” he says. “And export conditions were favourable: Taiwan especially was starting to import a lot of cherries.”

They opted for new, high-density, late-producing varieties like big, solid Lapins; heart-shaped, black-skinned Staccato; and bright red, extra-late-ripening Sweethearts.

The move proved almost immediately successful.

Meanwhile (one quickly learns there’s always a “meanwhile” in Chris’s world), Chris was pushing dirt on the first properties he’d purchased. Huge quantities of dirt.

Through the early years of farming, ravines were used as dumping grounds for all manner of garbage. Chris bought unfarmable, garbage-filled ravine land, then recontoured it, “folding it” into something something usable. While Chris insists he wasn’t the first to use big machinery to reshape the farming landscape, his ability to see what others didn’t added significant value to his operation.

Step 3: Make yourself a front-runner

Then entirely unexpectedly, Chris’s father died of a massive heart attack during routine surgery. To keep his mom at home, Chris and Betty subdivided his parent’s property and then bought out the family orchard: almost 60 acres of prime, sandy-soiled, southeasterly exposed, rolling hill.

Right away, he started converting the home lot’s apples into cherries. Aided by the provincial government’s treefruit replant subsidy program, Chris and Betty soon had 55 acres to cherries — a daunting task to manage, pick and pack.

While labour shortages are the bane of virtually every independent packer, being an industry front-runner means you beat the labour crunch.

“Labour problems come after a commodity starts to peak. We were in early so we didn’t have an issue. We had 30 people in the warehouse — predominantly older, retired packinghouse women — and they were awesome. And in the orchard we had a transient picking force of 50.”

Meanwhile, cherry packaging technology started to explode. From labour-intensive sorting lines, technology shifted to automated, optic sizing. The Jentsches knew staying ahead meant investing in serious infrastructure, so they made capital upgrades so big and so gutsy that they became a topic of great discussion among more conservative growers.

The move proved correct and the dollars followed.

Yet Chris knew it couldn’t last.

“We weren’t going to be the only ones who found that late-variety window. Americans started planting later varieties and at higher elevation, and those cherries started to sweep over our little window. I could see the writing on the wall in 2004.

“I knew the heyday was over.”

Step 4: Know when to change directions

With their young cherry orchard just reaching peak productivity in 2004, Chris and Betty made an impossibly hard call.

“You have no idea how difficult it is to fire up a ’dozer and rip out picture perfect cherries. That was tough,” Chris recalls. “But it’s either in or out for me. I found a buyer for the packing line equipment and then we pulled the whole works of the trees out.”

Of course, Chris had a plan.

“By 2004, the vineyard industry’s renaissance was already in play. So grapes it was.”

Chris and Betty talked about opening a winery right from the get-go but Betty (wisely) recognized how overwhelmingly massive the undertaking would be, so the two opted to grow their grapes for existing wineries instead.

The grapes grew fantastically on Chris and Betty’s premium, southeasterly facing slopes. Demand proved steady. All seemed smooth.

Once again, Chris knew it couldn’t last.

Step 5: Above all, be brave

As farmers up and down the valley jumped on the grape bandwagon, apples, cherries, sagebrush fell victim to the push for more vineyard. Good land and increasingly marginal land alike all suddenly sprouted posts, wires and young grapevines.

As grape production shifted into oversupply in 2012, demand suddenly dropped precipitously. From one month to the next, independent growers — even some contracted growers — couldn’t move their crops.

For sale signs popped up everywhere. Grapes left hanging on vines slowly dropped to the ground over the winter, a depressing reminder of the sharp market downturn.

Chris knew the storm would hit them too. Still, it was a serious kick when, in May of 2013, Chris and Betty found themselves with no buyer for their coming crop.

“Our plan was to be happy just growing grapes. But then suddenly, you couldn’t even give away your grapes,” says Chris. “It’s hard to believe in yourself in times like that. There was a lot of pain in the industry. Even though you know success comes in ebbs and flows, when you can’t move your crop, it’s hard.”

It was a make-or-break time for the industry and individual growers.

“We had to do something. Otherwise we would have lost it all; we couldn’t have survived,” he says. “We had a warehouse and we had grapes, so we decided to open a winery.”

“If we’d known then what we know now…” Betty looks up from her computer to interject, before trailing off and shaking her head.

“As usual, ignorance saved the day,” Chris says. “If we’d known what was involved we’d gladly have opted out of the farm and done something else. But we didn’t know, so we jumped in. And the prime directive — to make the farm profitable — that was a constant. We didn’t know anything about winemaking at all but we knew the winery was an extension of value adding.”

Step 6: Keep on keeping on, despite uncertainty

The investment required to start up a winery, between the capital costs of winemaking and bottling equipment and the variable costs of winemaking expertise, is more than daunting. But the dollars and cents proved worse than just that.

Whereas the average farm family gets paid for its commodities at least annually, that isn’t how it works in the wine business. Investment doesn’t translate into immediate income because wine takes time to sell.

“A well-oiled corporate winery might be able to carry the costs for four years. When you’re a mom-and-pop, a Betty and Chris, it’s a whole lot harder to stay afloat until the dollars start coming in. I naively thought we’d bang out some wines and sell to a bulk market. When that wasn’t possible, we realized we needed to build a brand and convince people to invest in our product. That’s no easy feat. Here we are competing against great big marketing machines — and even at that level, those guys struggle too.”

What has played in Chris and Betty’s favour is a little timing, a little luck, and that unflagging, never-say-never work ethic.

A year before deciding to invest in a winery, Chris and Betty had found themselves with grapes on their hands as market demand slowed.

“I didn’t want to dump them,” says Chris. “Betty thought I was crazy, but I decided to crush them at a custom crush facility up-valley.”

The crush produced 1,700 cases — a very small run by industry standards. Though expensive by the bottle to produce, the upside of the run was that it introduced Chris and Betty to the regulatory side of wine production and allowed them to work through some of the myriad winery startup tasks, from brand development to label creation to administrative organization.

And it officially gave them their first vintage.

Step 7: Believe in what you do

Chris and Betty are three real years into building CC Jentsch Cellars. It’s a labour of self, of love and of tireless commitment in more ways than one.

The CC Jentsch name references Chris and Betty’s middle names (Carl and Coelho). The wine names themselves — “The Chase,” “The Dance,” “The Quest” — play on the theme of the couple’s enduring love story.

Today, they see light at the end of the startup tunnel.

“We’ve approached the winery the same way we approached sending fruit to the final customer. The buyer has to feel that they got good value. It’s not that first sale that will carry the day, it’s when they come back and want to buy more.

“Every wine bottle is our ambassador. We need people to buy it again and again.”

Step 8: Always look forward

What’s next for Chris and Betty Jentsch and their CC Jentsch Cellars?

“We’re always looking ahead,” says Chris. “Tomorrow morning, we could wake up to a -25 C morning and we’ll have to start all over again. So all the options are open.”

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