Inspirations Archives – Agricultrices du Québec

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.

Brenda O’Farrell
Special to Agricultrices du Québec

Farming in the Yukon is not for the faint of heart, nor is it done on a large scale, and that is just fine with Karen Temple.

In a place where below-freezing temperatures usually stretch from October to March, which leaves a growing season limited to June and July, raising livestock has its unique challenges. But Temple has jumped in with both feet.

The 56-year-old runs Sunny Spot Farm with her husband, Chance Temple. Established in 2021, it is one of just a few farms with goats in Canada’s westernmost territory, which finds its northern corner hovering above the Arctic Circle. It is a small operation, just under nine acres, with a herd of about 125. But Temple has no shortage of enthusiasm.

“I love goats. I just love goats,” she said.

And the market for goat meat is growing, she explained, especially among the territory’s growing immigrant population. Since the early 2000s, the territory has seen a boost in its Asian population, including a significant portion arriving from the Philippines.

“Sixty per cent of the world eats goat,” Temple said, “just not North America and Europe.”

But despite Temple’s enthusiasm for raising goats, the reality of the North does not make it easy.

According to Statistics Canada, the Yukon, which has a population of just below 47,000, had only 88 farms in 2021, and only a few raise goats. In fact, unlike in the rest of Canada, which has a long history of generational farming, there were no farms in the territory before 1898. And today there is only one dairy farm and a single federally-inspected egg-producing operation.

Temple’s farm is located in Marsh Lake, a community of about 750 people southeast of the capital Whitehorse. The property is south of the Alaska Highway, which cuts through the southern part of the territory, and the Yukon River. It is located on a rural road, four kilometres from the nearest power line, which means they live off-the-grid, generating their own auxiliary power, which pumps water from private wells.

“It’s harsh,” admitted Temple, who grew up on a hobby farm in Armstrong, B.C., southeast of Kamloops. “We are the pioneers of farming in Yukon.”

That pioneering spirit is what gets them through the winter months, which require them to purchase enough hay to get their herd through it.

The goats grow what Temple calls “fuzzy coats” in the deep-freeze months. “When its minus-30, they kind of lay down, get up to eat and then lay down together,” she said, explaining that the goats stay outside most of the time, but have access to an unheated, insulated barn. Making sure they have access to water, without it freezing over, is a constant chore.

“The resources to support us are not there,” she said.

The lack of veterinarians and strict regulations, like the territory’s Sheep and Goat Control Order, which came into effect in January, make goat farming that much more difficult.

The latest control order follows on the heels of the original order that dates back to 2020. It’s a measure imposed under the territorial government’s Animal Health Act that aims to reduce the risk of exposing wild sheep and mountain goats to respiratory pathogens that can be carried by healthy domestic sheep and goats. Temple said the rules require goat farmers to keep their animals behind two lines of fencing at all time. This has made the logistics of expanding her heard by offering a grazing and weed control service to clean up lots owned by others more difficult.

But she is doing just that for the first time this summer nonetheless, using lines of temporary mesh fencing. She said she simply put out a call, saying she was looking for hay and places to graze her goats. The practice allows her to reduce her daily feeding costs, and, as she says, “it’s good for the goats.”

The practice is part of her business plan, which she put together when they launched the farm.

“We’re pretty much on track,” Temple said, referring to her business plan. But then offers a qualifier: “The farm lost less money last year.”

But Temple is undeterred. She is determined to maintain her status of a farmer in a part of the country where the practice is just still burgeoning and which she has called home since she was 19.

“It’s interesting to be somewhere where something has not ever happened before.”

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

Karen Temple: Taking on challenges of raising goats in Yukon