Farmer Xander 1

I’m Xander. I will be farming with Shannon & Bryan this season. I met Shannon 3 years ago while she was apprenticing at Everdale Organic Farm and Environmental Learning Centre in Ontario. I came to the farm that summer to volunteer, and also to interview all the apprentices for my Master’s research in Geography, which looked at barriers to entry for new farmers in southwestern Ontario (that’s the ‘Geography’ part). Throughout the summer I would return to the farm (and visit others) to volunteer whenever I could escape school and the city, and this commitment landed me a job for the following season as a farmer at Everdale (a position Shannon also held). So in 2010 we worked together, played a lot of Dutch Blitz, and lived in a small straw-bale cabin with our friend Jocelyn. That season solidified my passion for and interest in farming and I decided to do an apprenticeship the following year, landing at La Ferme Cooperative Tourne-Sol in Quebec. After a great season there, and a brief autumn sojourn in Toronto, I headed east in November to attend the ACORN Conference, and to check out the land that Bryan and Shannon had just purchased. I look forward to working alongside these two, and learning lots from their experiences in setting up a farm and business from the ground up.