Jamie Fraser: Raising sheep — and awareness of role of farmers — in Nova Scotia

Brenda O’Farrell
Special to Agricultrices du Québec

If there was a typical Nova Scotia farmer, Jamie Fraser would not fit the mold.

The 39-year-old holds a master’s degree in science and an undergraduate degree in aqua-culture from the University of Dalhousie and now works full time at the institution’s agricultural campus, one of the leading research institutions in the field in Canada.

In her spare time, she farms.

“If I could — and I had a $1 million — I would definitely farm full time,” Fraser said.

Fraser raises sheep on a farm she operates with her brother, who tends a beef herd of about 40. The farm is owned by their mother and is located in Tatamagouche, a small town about 50 kilometres north of Truro and west of Pictou along the Northumberland Strait, which separates Nova Scotia from Prince Edward Island.

She has no hesitation in describing her relationship with farming as her hobby.

“I find work uses my education and keeps my brain kinda moving,” Fraser said, referring to her day job at the agricultural campus, where she is the manager of the feed mill that develops and produces animal feeds, often working with novel ingredients.

“I use my work to pay for things, and it’s my pension plan,” she explained. “My hobby is farming. I like being around animals.”

“I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have the farm to work on.”

But Fraser does not just work on the farm and tend to her sheep, she is also active in a number of farming organizations. She is a member of the board of the Sheep Producers Association of Nova Scotia, the vice-president of the Purebred Sheep Breeders Association of Nova Scotia, the beef and sheep leader for the 4-H Club, a member of the Northumberland Sheep Producers Association, which organizes the annual Pictou Sheep Show and Christmas dinner and auction.

All of that involvement has made her an advocate for supporting local producers.

“I want people to support Canadian-grown food,” she said, explaining much work is needed to ensure average consumers not only buy Canadian, but understand the quality of the food produced in this country.
“They need more connection to realize how it’s produced,” she said, adding that more people, non-farmers, could get involved in the sector.

“A lot of jobs are available in agriculture, but people are not getting involved because they don’t know about it,” she explained.

When asked if more women should get involved in farming, she responded: “I’ve always known women to be involved in agriculture. I’ve never seen women not involved.”
And when it comes to her subsector of production, she acknowledges that there are a lot more women than men in sheep production, compared with beef production, for example, which is dominated by men.

Fraser is optimistic about women’s place in the future of farming, especially in the sheep sector, an area that has room for expansion in Canada, she said. But that does not mean she is not worried about the future of farming in general in this country.

“My one fear is that a lot of larger companies will take it over,” she said. “That is my one worry.”

It is perhaps that worry that spurs her to keep doing what she does, and on the scale she does it. It is perhaps what justifies why she gets up every morning to do chores on the farm before going out to her job at 8 a.m., and then returns home to do more chores, head to the hay fields till about 10 and, on some days, then fix an electric fence until about midnight. And then do it all again the next day.