N.B. farm a dream come true for Toronto family, initial challenges daunting

When Karen Anderson Ferron agreed to follow her husband Al's lifelong dream of starting a farm, she didn't imagine she'd have to put her corporate marketing skills to use from the very beginning.

This time she wasn't making cold calls as a fundraiser, as she had in Toronto, but making calls to gather the information needed to get their farm in New Brunswick up and running.

She and her family purchased a farm in Long Settlement, around 20 kilometres southwest of Florenceville-Bristol, not far from the U.S. border, and they moved there in 2021. 

Ferron said they did lots of research before falling in love with the property, but reality only really sank in once they arrived. 

They have since grown it into Ferron Family Farms Ltd., a farm spanning 137 acres, specializing in grass-fed meats, including goat, beef and pork.

Ferron said she thinks New Brunswick still has work to do when it comes to supporting new-entrant farmers, meaning those new to the agricultural industry, especially when it comes to the availability of information.

"I'm still learning and I still don't even know half of what these generational farmers know," said Ferron. "To be honest, the attitude that we found towards us coming into farming was no one took us seriously, especially when they know you're from the city."

Ferron said they started with the new-entrants roadmap, a lengthy guide from the New Brunswick Department of Agriculture that offers snippets on things to consider and departments to know about when starting a farm. 

She still had to call those departments, though, and said department officials wanted to help but often had to look up the information she was asking about, especially since she was interested in farming goats as a meat source, a relatively new idea in N.B. agriculture, she said.

Ferron wanted to speak to more people who working on farms, knowing they would have the deepest wealth of knowledge on day-to-day operations.

Her main recommendation to the Department of Agriculture is to have a roster of farmers willing to mentor new entrants so they don't have to try to find these people themselves. 

Even if the farmer is not in the exact same sector of agriculture as the new entrant, they can provide advice on grants, equipment, and local resources, Ferron said.

She sees the interest from new farmers like herself as an opportunity for New Brunswick agriculture, but said the way it is set up now, it's very discouraging. She thinks the roadmap itself should also be revised to include more information on who does what and where to go for information.

"It's a pricey venture to take on," said Ferron. "It's a lot and it can be daunting."