International Year of the Woman Farmer: Avia

16 hours ago
21 min read

Meet Avia!

Avia has helped to develop the Integrated Community Sustainability Plan for King Township as an Economic Development Pillar Working Group member.

She was involved in the Business Retention and Expansion project between King Township and the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville for agricultural and rural businesses to identify weaknesses and strengths for same.

Currently, Avia is involved in the N6 initiative with York Region to bring accessible, affordable connectivity to N6 municipalities.

Avia and her husband Bill own and operate Eek Farms in the Holland Marsh. She's lived in Ward 6 since 1988 and Bill is a third-generation Holland Marsh farmer; his great-uncle was one of the first settlers in Ansnorveldt in 1934.

What does your identity as a woman farmer mean to you?

First of all, I don't think I've ever really considered myself a farmer, which sounds bizarre. I married into farming. I met Billy, and I knew he was a farmer. When I married him I was a legal secretary. My dad (who I never had anything to do with) had farmland and his cousin was a beef farmer on Woodbine who farmed my dad's land, so I never had any farm experience and it wasn't until I married Bill that I was involved would see what was going on in agriculture. It was then that I started to write letters to the editor about farming and the unfair playing field our farmers had no choice but to operate within. Our trading partners were using crop protection no longer permitted here in Ontario, labour costs (through rules and regulations) were much higher, housing costs for workers was higher, and yet we were expected to compete with China, Mexico, Guatemala and even the US as rules here in Canada are much stricter.

When we were first married, I was a legal secretary. When we started our family, he gave me the option of do you wanna go back to work, or do you wanna stay home and raise the kids? We were in a good financial position because he always worked off the farm. So I said, OK, I'll stay home and raise the kids, and I'll help out on the farm. So, then I started helping out on the farm.

I considered myself more Bill's helper. It's actually kind of funny because in the last few years you hear a lot more about women farmers in this sector of agriculture: edible horticulture, but it is still very much male dominated. I know there's a lot of women that are into livestock operations.

Even though I don't consider myself a farmer, I would do work around the farm. Sometimes I was the chairman of the board (levelling boxes as the produce came off the harvester into the pallet boxes. Our neighbour, Harry (with whom we shared resources in the early days), would get random guys to drive beside the combine at harvest, and they never had even been in a tractor, much less driven beside a combine. I used to say, “you know what, I at least know how to drive it. Train me and I can do it.” They'd say, “oh yeah, we'll do that next year, next year,” and it took several years before I could convince these men to give me a shot at it. Finally, they did. It took me a couple years to get everything perfect, to be able to back up a 33 ft wagon, drive straight forward while continuously looking backwards, watching the "Chairman" of the board, keeping an eye on the combine, watching for the end of the field, etc.. You gotta watch because everything's moving. After I did that for a couple of years, Harry said, “I'm glad we taught you because I won't have anybody else but you drive beside the combine now.” That made me so proud of myself because in my head I'm like, yes I told you I could do it and you wouldn't listen to me. I didn't say that out loud, but it was in my head. Even now, although I do still drive beside the combine when needed, I consider myself more a farm administrator because I do all the farm admin, I do all the applications, the payroll, I make sure all the bills are paid. I make sure money is in the accounts where it's supposed to be. It's funny because even though I've been doing this for 37+ years, I do not consider myself a farmer. I consider myself the mouthpiece behind the farmer.

In 2023 a survey from Farm Management Canada found that many women struggle with identifying themselves as a farmer. You've said that you don't identify as a farmer, I'm wondering why you don't identify as a farmer.

Great question, no idea. I don't know. I was raised to look after my husband. I did have my own job but she [mom] instilled in me the idea that you make sure your husband's meals are on the table, you kiss good night, you kiss good morning, you support your man. Support them in everything they do. That's the mindset I was raised with. I can't speak for other women. Maybe because it's been such a male dominated sector of the economy, women just really struggle with calling themselves farmers…I really don't know.

Do you think that it being a male dominated industry naturally means that it is designed to favour men?

Possibly. It's very tricky. I don't consider myself a farmer, but then on the other side of that very same coin, I can tell you I am so proud of the fact that in this agricultural community, I am the first woman to ever be elected as counselor since 2010. I am also the first counselor to hold this seat for 15 plus years.

When I look back on surveys I filled out, they had questions like as a woman, how do you find that you're threatened, or do you feel that you're not taken seriously, and I have to say I don't. In farming I feel that I'm not necessarily taken seriously, but on the municipal end of things when I talk about farming, I am taken very seriously.

Before I even decided to run for council…we have a local grower association, the Holland Marsh Growers Association, and in 2009 I went to one of their meetings with Bill out of curiosity. I wanted to know what these people were doing, so I went to their AGM. It was a night for an election, and all 8 board members were men. A couple of them were stepping down so they needed nominees. Billy's cousin said, “oh, I nominate Avia Eek,” and I thought Jack is being funny because he had an interesting sense of humour. Then somebody else nominated another farmer, a male farmer. They asked if I would accept the nomination. I said, sure, because honestly, I did not think I would get elected. The nomination was for 1 seat. There's a man and me, and I thought, OK, he's the actual farmer, there's no way they're gonna put me on this board. Guess who got on the board? I was voted onto the board and I thought, "wow, this is different."

Then during my work from 2009 to 2010 on this board, they didn't feel that the councillor of the day for our ward was doing anything to support agriculture. So they suggested that I run. I always thought that to be in politics, you had to have some fancy education, you had to have a lot of money, and you had to know a lot of people. I've learned since then that you need a functioning brain cell, you need to care about people, and you don't need to have any political experience. You just have to be able to deal with people. So, I thought, OK, I'll put my name forward. You know what? I got 60% of the vote running against the incumbent!

It’s been wild because the next time I ran (2014), I got 82%, the time after that (2018) I got 68% of the vote, in (2022) I was acclaimed. So, while I say I'm not a farmer, and I don't consider myself a farmer in a farming community that I am part of, the farmers have chosen a woman to represent them. So it's complex.

So then, with this being a male dominated industry, and it seems like it is designed to favor men, would you see yourself as the exception that proves the rule, or as a beginning point of a new movement within agriculture to make it more balanced?

Yes! And, give the women a chance if they've earned it. Don't just give it as a consolation prize. “Oh, you're a woman, and we need to fill this spot.” One thing that I am very proud of the position I hold is I have earned my spot.

I know when I was first elected there was a little Italian man up the road, and he got in my face. He was a very loud man, and I guess he thought, OK, she's a woman, I'm gonna scare her. Well, I stepped closer to him and I gave him back what he gave me, and a boundary was established. I did that with another resident a few years ago. He had some kind of drainage problem. Well, you should have noticed that you would have a drainage problem, the fact that there's 10 ft high bull rushes on the property right beside you, but you know, who am I to call out common sense? He had sent this letter saying he was gonna sue the township. He was gonna sue all the councillors, and he sent it to our MPP. He sent it to all the Bradford councillors, all the King councillors, and that was New Year's Eve of 2023. So, I called him back, that was on a Saturday and I said I will meet you on site tomorrow, New Year's Day, and we'll have a conversation about this. I told my husband what had happened and he said, “Well, I'm going with you because I don't think you should go alone.” So I met the man on site. We shook hands. I said, “I'll tell you one thing right now. I don't take kindly to threats. I will work my butt off to represent you, and I do work my butt off to represent my residents and my farmers and businesses, but do not ever threaten me again.” You know what, after I laid it on the line that I was not backing down and I was not gonna be subject to his bullying tactics, we had the best meeting. Because I won't tolerate it.

I think women in farming are taken more seriously now. They can't be wilting violets though, they have to be confident in what they're doing. Don't be afraid to ask for help; help and information. Farmers out here call each other and ask, "hey how did you get rid of such and such a problem in your field--they share information. They're not afraid to talk to one another because they don't have all the answers either, and women cannot be afraid to ask for help. You don't know something? Seek out the answers and have confidence. Don't do it in a meek, mild way. Just have a bit of a tone (a little bit of a tone doesn't hurt), and establish your place and you'll get respect. Now, that could turn the other way because some people might say, “oh she's got attitude,” you know, but it's all how you approach it. A little humour goes a long way, too.

I agree. Humour is incredibly valuable. I wonder if it's also about having a strong personal constitution. You said that you know people, so having a really strong constitution, and then knowing people, you're able to set the appropriate boundaries for the appropriate situations. You know there's some people you just gotta come down hard and fast on, and there's some people where you use humour, right?

That's right. Or you massage the situation. I know the staff that I'm privileged to work with, whether it's at the township or the conservation authority or even at York Region through our committee. Giving compliments where they're due and not taking credit for stuff that you didn't do; give credit where it's due, analyzing each situation, and then managing that situation because it's not one size fits all. I'm not going to be hard nosed in all my dealings. That's not going to work. There's a difference because you build rapport with people and you build genuineness, and that benefits the relationship moving forward.

Is there any advice you'd give to an immigrant woman who is entering the industry? What else would you add on top of what you’ve said already?

Recently I had an opportunity to talk to a quasi-immigrant man. I would give an immigrant woman the same advice that I gave him because he's got 25 acres and he called me because he wanted to know if somebody could come and work the land for him. I said, “oh, absolutely. You could probably call…” and I gave him the name of the farmer just down the road from him. As we talked it became evident that he needed more help than may be available. I told him that first of all he has to figure out what kind of a crop he wants to grow; what kind of soil he's got and whether that soil will support that crop. Where I am it's marsh muck, it's organic based soil, but cruciferous vegetables do not grow well here. Root vegetables grow really well. Cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts grow better on sandy loam. You gotta get to know your soil, so grab some soil samples, find a lab and one of these agronomists and they come and do the soil samples. It gets sent to the lab for us. But it all costs money. There's just so much to consider: are you gonna be a farmer's market farmer, or you're going to be an organic or conventional grower. If you're going to be organic or conventional, then you have to have food safety in place which costs a lot of money to start up if you don't have a family member that is already farming.

I mean, this is something I would love to see because I know out here in the marsh we've had like 8 or so farmers in the last couple of years retire. The land is grabbed up by the younger farmers, but there are also some parcels of land that have just been let go fallow. Because either the land is marginal and for $1200 an acre, you don't want that land. Then some of these city dwellers that are moving in are thinking, “oh, I can get $1200 an acre a month.” No, that's for the season, but the real estate agents tell them that's a month because real estate agents do not know how this area actually operates. Some of them don't understand. They just want to sell the property. So I would love to see a system where an immigrant lady wanting to start up farming might be able to rent a 5 acre parcel out here, and work with someone.

I don't know what supports are in place now because my husband is a third generation farmer. His great uncle was one of the first settlers in Ansnorveldt in 1934 when the marsh was first being opened up with settlers. He's had his grandfather, his parents, so he's got that generational knowledge, and he's got the land, which we have slowly been acquiring since 1998. Somebody just coming in or who is already here but is an immigrant, I don't know what supports would be in place, whether they could partner with a farmer who's thinking about retiring and they could be taught. I mean maybe that's a new support to be created.

I like your answer because it addresses a lot of the inequalities and privileges that aren't often considered as we think about the agricultural industry, and the future of the agricultural industry. One of the reasons that usable or farmable land is disappearing is because we don't have a way to bring new people into farming, whether it's citizens or immigrants, we don't have a way to support new people entering into the agricultural industry. Because of the complex way that Canada was founded, there are a lot of things that have been held by generations of families, and yet when some of that land is sold off, because of our capitalist corporatist mindset, it gets sold to the corporations and we lose land. As opposed to having people who are ready and willing to take that land, to use it. It's difficult, and it is a growing gap.

We're looking at retiring within the next 3 to 5 years. We are not going to be selling our land. Eventually our kids are going to get the land and their offspring will get the land, but until we die, we'll rent the land out. Because if we give it to them, the government's just going to take the capital gains so there's that.

It will be part of our retirement package, the land rent. Like I said to Bill, for some of these young farmers around here (I mean there's probably maybe a handful or two handfuls of young farmers and I'm talking like 35 to 40, that's what I'm calling young), you know what, just to give them a break. I would charge them less than the going rate for an acre out here. Just to give them a break because the government makes it so hard to farm now. We have to do our food safety (although that isn't government, it's chain store driven) even though there's never been a food recall in the whole marsh. It's just getting so onerous to produce food. What galls me is that in the US, China, Mexico, all these places where we get products from, they're allowed to use all the things we are forbidden from using. Those products are still imported into our country, yet our farmers are not allowed to use those things that are effective. The playing field is not level.

This is the thing as a farmer, how hard you work does not mean you're going to make money at the end of the day. It drives me nuts when people say, “farming is a lifestyle.” It is not a lifestyle, it's a business. It is a business putting food on people's tables, and it's becoming increasingly more difficult.

I understand basic food safety - that makes sense to me. I understand not using DDT anymore. I get that. But there's some common sense things. Here's an example: I got myself on the Canada GAP board of directors a few years ago because we were encouraged to (it's not a government program), and because the Loblaws and Sobey's and Metros’ of the world were pushing food safety at the farm level. One of the most ridiculous things that they were asking is that, OK, I don't believe in hand sanitizer on a good day because it kills good bacteria, not just the bad bacteria. I believe in soap and water. So they were saying “your workers, when they go in the field, they have to sanitize their hands and then put on their rubber gloves or their working gloves to pull weeds,” and I'm thinking that's ridiculous! They're not even handling a food product, they're pulling weeds. So I got myself elected on the Canada GAP board of directors, and we had to meet in Ottawa a couple of times a year. I was with the peak of the market people like from Manitoba, from Fraser Valley in BC, southwestern Ontario, from Nova Scotia, this was the calibre of people that were on this committee. When I brought up the issues that we were dealing with, they said, “oh no, you are not representing your growing area, you're here to provide information and better the entire industry.” I only stayed on the board for my term which was 2 years. I realized I wasn't going to make a difference. This is big business, and the big businesses are pushing out the little guys.

We've been seeing that. It's the nature of capitalism, right? Which is our biggest challenge right now. There are many perceived values to capitalism, however, they run the risk of overshadowing all the flaws.

What do you wish the average person understood about what it means to be specifically a woman involved in farming and agriculture?

How challenging it is. Whether it's from a financial perspective, like getting the money back that we invested. Over the years, I've been married to Bill for 37+ years, we have more than doubled the size of our farm operation from when his mom and dad had it. We have bought properties over the years, and we've upgraded our entire operation since 2018. I was sitting there thinking when we were in the field harvesting, I was waiting for the wagon to fill up, and I was doing the calculations and I thought just these 3 tractors and the combine and the 2 wagons, it was half a million dollars. So it's challenging from a financial perspective for women because even though we've had a very successful farm operation for decades, going to the bank to get money, it's like you're asking them to give you the money and you're not going to repay it. The hoops a farmer has to jump through to borrow money is onerous. I get it, every growing season is a gamble.

I remember one time I was telling this financial guy one of the stories when we were dealing with CIBC years and years and years ago. We're still dealing with them, but for this one instance we were buying a tractor. I went into the bank and a lady l that I went to school with was the bank manager. She said, “I haven't heard any more about that tractor you're gonna buy. When are you expecting it? Because we don't have the paperwork yet from downtown.” I said, “Well, it's coming tomorrow.” She said, “yeah, but we haven't got the paperwork finalized.” I said, “We're not going through you. We've been waiting for two weeks to hear back whether we're getting the money. We're doing the deal. We called up Farm Credit, and we got the money in 15 minutes. We're not going through your bank.” Even though we've never reneged on a payment, and at one time we had 4 mortgages and 2 equipment loans, we've never reneged. I mean, we've tightened our belts, but we've never reneged on any of our debt obligations. So going to the bank as a woman is even trickier. It's challenging not being taken seriously. I strongly believe that women are not taken seriously when it comes to that [agriculture] because it's hard work and you have to be a business manager, you have to be an agronomist, you have to be a botanist, you have to be a financial freaking wizard. I don't think they take women seriously enough for any of those roles.

That has been a constant theme in my interviews. Even the strongest willed women like yourself and a couple others would say the same thing. It took them a long time to be taken seriously. It takes a lot of work to get there, whereas men are given that without that same kind of work.

That's right. They don't have to prove themselves.

That is an unfortunately common theme with the women that I've been interviewing so far.

So my final question for you is, why is farming important to you?

Well, we need to eat. When you're looking at it from a national lens, a country that cannot feed itself is not a successful nation. I've been saying this particular thing even before the Trump debacle down south of the border. What happens when we just keep paving farmland over without any thought? What happens when we pave over all that good land instead? You can build a house anywhere. You can't just grow food anywhere. We have all this land in Ontario and across Canada, but it's not all arable land. There's a percent, a very tiny percentage of it you can farm, because in this day and age people do not want a lot of chemicals on their food. They don't want this, they don't want that. So it makes sense to be growing food on the best soil that you've got, not covering it over with houses. I've been saying this for a long time.

You know what happens if one of our trade partners that we rely on heavily for food decides, you know what, no, we're going to put tariffs. We're kind of screwed. Now this is where a little bit of green environmentalism is going to creep into the conversation. Years ago, when Chris Ballard was the MPP and Minister of the Environment (and we're friends), he got me to watch this film. I've seen it twice and it's called Before the Flood. The constant with this planet Earth is it changes. It always changes, even when there were no people on the planet. I mean, it rained for millions of years. We had volcanoes. We had CO2 for millions of years because there were volcanoes erupting all over the place. Life changes on this planet. So, I don't call it climate change, but the climate is shifting as a farmer. I see it. We used to have to have stuff seeded by May 3rd, like onions had to be seeded by May 3rd, or you weren't getting an onion by Halloween. Well, you can go till the middle of June now and you don't have to harvest that until December weather permitting. September used to be when we would harvest our onions and it was hot. Well, it's hot into October. We don't even start our carrots until well into November because it's just too hot. We put them in storage and they have a lot of sugar. We don't want them melting and we don't want to have to use the coolers because they cost a lot of money. So the climate has shifted. But back to this film, the way that they model climate shifting, Canada is going to be, if the modeling is correct, and I don't know that it is, but based on the modeling in this documentary, Canada is going to find itself in a very moderate temperature climate. In California, they've had to shut down some of the crops they grow because they're very reliant on water. If the modeling is correct, Canada is going to be in a really unique position for providing food for the world. I don't think we should be overlooking that.

So why do I think farming is important? Because we can feed people. You have people who know how to grow food, who understand the elements of nature. They understand their crop, the soil, and they know how to deal with things. That's why I think farming is important. We need to be able to feed people. It's not just one little silo (I'm using that little farm pun on purpose), we need to be pulling all the silos down and looking at the huge picture in front of us and, unfortunately, governments don't do that. They look at the next election cycle and what's going to garner them more votes and more support. They're not doing things that make sense. Like with this building houses faster. I get we need to provide housing for people. Well, here's a newsflash: maybe not bring so many people in. Let's fix our economy a little bit first, and then bring people in to fill those gaps, and then maybe start bringing extras in, but let's solve the problem first. But they're not thinking beyond the length of their nose and they're not taking all of the issues into consideration. They're looking at one issue, we need housing! Oh, well let's just get rid of all the rules around building and the environment and conservation, let's just get rid of all that and oh yeah, farmland, yeah, don't worry about it.

I see this in King. We'll have a developer that wants to expand the settlement area or the settlement boundary in one of our villages. We said no, we have enough land set aside for development we don't need to be going outside that and going into good farmland. Well, the developer had deep pockets and just took it to the OLT (Ontario Land Tribunal) and they said, oh yeah, you can have this. This is what happens a lot of times, and people don't realize it. It's not always the municipalities that are allowing it. They say no, and so the developer takes it to the OLT. Well, you know, an average OLT depending on how much on, on what is involved, it can be anywhere from $100,000 to $400,000 of taxpayer money to defend the municipality's position. So then you have to make the decision, do we fight this, or do we use that money for other services or other benefits to our community? So it's a really tough decision, and it blows my mind because we work so hard at developing our plan. We do public consultation because it has to be what your community wants, and balancing the farmland, and protecting farmland, but then the developer will take it to the OLT and the OLT is very province friendly so they're going to do what the province wants. We are creatures of the province. Our job as councillors and municipalities is to enforce provincial legislation. We don't get to make up our own rules (we have some leeway with some things, but generally it's enforcing provincial legislation). If they want to run the municipalities and take all of the tools out of our toolboxes, then by all means just cancel all the councils, and just run it yourselves because essentially in the last 4 years that's what they've been doing. They've been slowly taking things out of our toolbox and residents don't always understand that.

It's the privatization of Ontario.

You know, it's giving individuals strong mayor powers over situations where actually a committee or a community is best positioned to make the proper call, and that's because they want people, especially councillors like myself, to have that attitude.

We're lucky in King because our mayor does not use them. This is funny, watch this election cycle because I've already seen a candidate who's running for mayor in Bradford say he's going to refuse them, he's going to send them back. Well, news flash, we had a whole education session: You're not allowed to refuse them. You have to accept them. You don't have to use them, but you can't send them back.

We had the option to continue with public meetings because you don't have to do that anymore under new Planning rules. In King we value what our community tells us, so we said NO! We're absolutely still going to have public meetings. We are still going to allow people to talk. Even when it comes to the budget, it's the mayor's budget, but he allows us all to put our wish list in, and we have a conversation about it. It's not just his ego because I don't think the province was thinking very straight when they implemented that particular piece of legislation. If you've got a decent person who's the mayor, it's gonna work fine. If you've got some kind of power hungry lunatic in there it's gonna be chaos. Absolutely.

Theoretically, you're a woman farmer, even though you don't identify as one. You married into a generational farming family. Your background, and childhood gave you the experience and empathy that you needed to know how to be a woman in a male dominated industry. Even as a legal secretary, that's a male dominated area as well.

Yep, very much so.

You are in a unique position, and now as a counselor, a representative of the constituents of King, that's again, another wonderful position to have with the knowledge that you have about farming and about agriculture.

I think being raised by a single mom, not having a male figure around to influence my decisions, I think that may have a lot to do with why I'm the way I am. Like when I was 16, my mom had a spinner washer and the motor died. I took the motor assembly apart and my mom drove to a plant shack in Newmarket. We got a new motor assembly and I installed it. My mother was a strong, independent woman.

My gosh, you're amazing.

But that's because there was no man. Since I've been married, I've been spoiled rotten. I used to always take my vehicle in for motor oil changes and I used to do all that myself because there was no man. Then I got married, and Billy, you know, looks after the family. So now it's just this last year or so I'm like, you know what hon? I'll take my vehicle in, you just focus on the farm business. I take care of things myself, because I'm getting to an age where I may outlive him or I may not outlive him. I’ve realized that I cannot continue to be reliant on him. I need to go back to what I was before I married him and be a little bit more on the independent side because I think having been raised by a single mom with no male influence, I think that's made me who I am. Maybe not. Maybe some women who grew up with a dad, maybe they've had a strong dad that does support them, and then they're still able to be strong women. But I feel that having grown up the way that I did, that helped shape who I am today."