Farm Feature Interview: Robintide Farms

This month's farm feature interview is with Tim from Robintide Farms. Robintide Farms has been a family farm in Vaughan, Ontario for more than 50 years. Their farm activities have included beef cattle, mixed crops, breeding, raising and training quarter horses and raising milk goats and Boer goats. Over recent years, Robintide Farms has been growing its offerings of local farm-fresh pick-your-own and picked-for-you strawberries, vegetables, flowers and more each spring and summer, as well as pick-your-own pumpkins in the fall. Robintide is a great place to visit and take wonderful pictures!

Tell me about a typical day here on the farm. Walk me through what you do from sunrise to sunset, and what you enjoy most about it.

Depends on the season but during the busy parts of the year, wake up, have some coffee, respond to emails and do some computer work. Make sure our employees know what they are doing for the morning-try to get started on what I need to do outside during the day but usually get interrupted and don't get what I want done. At some point, eat lunch (usually try to around the usual time but this can vary depending on the day). After lunch, check on how things are going around the farm with the other employees and then try to do the things I need to get done again. Walking the crops is my favourite thing to do but I don't do it as often as I should to stay on top of pests and disease. At the end of the day I make sure everything was closed up and everybody is finished for the day and then head in for the evening or whatever time it may be depending on the season and try to find something to relax. Usually watching an episode of some sort of drama series. 

Ontario's landscape, once dominated by family farms, is facing increasing pressure from development and global markets. Tim, being here on land your family has worked for 50 years, are you confident that this way of life can survive another generation?

I believe that parts of the gta will continue to be farmed but fewer and fewer farmers will be found as the land begins to be depleted further, at least in our area of the gta (Vaughan). It becomes increasingly difficult to farm in urban areas given the traffic and size of equipment required for farming. Not all, but lots of people who live in the area like to say they live around farms/farmers but when they meet them on the road it is a different story. It is also very hard to get into farming without already being in a family that Farms.  There are many challenges faced by newcomers to farming and this generally bars entrance to those who want to start from nothing. It already takes an immense amount of work to farm any kind of farming operation and when land costs for farms in the GTA are what they are it makes it virtually impossible for any newcomer to farm in the GTA.

Despite the challenges we've discussed, many farmers express a deep connection to the land and a passion for what they do. Tim, what keeps you going in this demanding profession, and what message do you have for Ontarians about the importance of agriculture in our province?

Yes, farming is a way of life that often runs deep in families. I didn't necessarily have a connection in my younger years but as I grew older I began to enjoy it more and more. I believe that the more family farms are removed from Ontario, the greater the disconnect (which is already great) will be between people and where their food comes from. So many people who come to our farm have no idea how things are grown and the effort that goes into it. Also, the more farms that are lost, the more we rely on others for something that we could continue to be growing ourselves (depending on the crop). 

What's the biggest change you've seen since you started, and how have you adapted to it?

Embracing technology (as we can afford it, because it is quite expensive!). It helps to increase productivity, reduces error and makes things safer. 

Let's be honest, what's the weirdest thing you've ever found growing in your fields that definitely wasn't supposed to be there?

We've not found anything crazy ever growing in our fields. It is interesting to see seeds get moved around the farm that wasn't due to us. Such as animals eating them or blowing in the wind. Somehow, things we grew at one end of the farm one year, you magically see one or two plants of it growing at the opposite end of the farm the next year.