Our Vision
We believe that the future of our food system lies in the hands of the small, agroecological family farms. We’ve created and recreated our farm in this image. We dream of a countryside filled with small farms, creating true food sovereignty, repairing ecosystems while creating abundance and stitching the social fabric of our communities. These are the family farms of the future. The legacy of our family farm starts now.
Our Core Beliefs
We don't want to produce vegetables at any cost. We take into consideration, the total cost. We always grow with the health of the environment in mind. We believe strongly in the principles of Permaculture and the practices of Regenerative agriculture. Agricultural practices have a huge impact on the environment. Minimizing damage is not enough. We want to make sure that we leave our little piece of the planet in a better condition than we found it.
We are in this together
We are more than a farm; we believe that in order to make this world better, we all need to work with others in our communities. Our vision of Ferme La Machine has always been to collaborate with other producers who are doing it right. We are actively seeking out other ethical producers interested in sharing our land to offer a wider range of products for our community. If you are interested in forming a partnership to produce, please Contact us.
Know your farmer / know your food - We invite questions about our farm, how we raise animals and grow plants. We believe firmly that direct relationships with the opportunity to discuss farming practices is the best way to truly understand not just where your food comes from, but how it was grown. CSA members are welcome at the farm any time. Non-members, see our hours for tours and visits or Contact us.
Growing ethically without compromise
Our philosophy is growing better, not bigger. Being a small family farm allows us to care for the plants and animals without the compromises that often come with large scale, even organic production. What does this mean? Producing large quantities of the same vegetables, even in rotation can start to resemble mono-cropping and can result in similar problems to those in larger scale agriculture making it harder to mitigate pest problems without having to resort to the use of pesticides that can have negative impacts on our environment. If you had a garden at home, you wouldn’t use pesticides, right? Probably because you don’t think it’s right, but also because you probably wouldn’t need to. The small quantity of mixed veggies planted closely together probably wouldn’t attract enough “bad” insects to cause a problem. We grow our fruit and vegetables like it was our home garden, because it is! Join our CSA and it becomes your garden too!
Diversity - Natural ecosystems have a huge variety of plants, animals and much smaller organisms. The more players available in the ecosystem, the better nature is able to make its own balance. We favour creating an environment with our gardens that allows this to happen. Seeing an increase in the plants and animals flourishing on our land is how we measure the success of our farm.
Small isn’t just about the size of the farm, it’s a way of thinking- Small, diversified farms like ours can actually produce more per acre than large agricultural operations. Our new farmstead is a on a total of approx 320 acres, (much bigger than our previous farm of 5 acres!) We see this as an opportunity to increase the diversity of our production not to increase volumes. We use intensive spacing between vegetables, interplanting, tunnels, integrate animals in the farm and many other strategies to keep a natural balance that maximizes the efficiency and productivity of the farm. This is a continual learning process that we love.