Edible Ottawa
'The Future is Female Farmers'
Photo by Brendan Burden
Ferme Thuya was born of a desire to leave the city and live close to the land. Owner, Anne-Marie Laplante, 29, bought the 130-acre farm just 15 minutes north of Wakefield, Que., hidden down a dead-end dirt road nearly four years ago, with the intention of homesteading, ultimately raising chickens, beef, pork and growing vegetables to sell.
Christa de Benedetti, above, took ownership of Boreal Farm in November 2020 and she already has big plans for it — workshops on growing your own food, composting, soap-making and more, yoga, brunches and whole lamb and hog roasts.
Anne-Marie Laplante has grand plans. She intends to open a microbrewery called Brasserie en Forêt in her century-old barn, growing the hops and barley for the beer on-site. There will be the farm store, selling eggs, chickens, house plants and vegetables from her farm and that of Ferme Reservoir.
Ellen Rice-Hogan has generations of farmers in her blood, and now, at just 22 years old, she is branching out on her own with a grass-fed, mixed animal operation on her 100-acre farm, Burrough Lane Livestock, in Low, Que. She has 200 pasture-grazing chickens, 35 Katahdin hair sheep, 50 Charolais x Dorset sheep, 10 head of cattle and four pigs.
“It’s difficult for a first-generation farmer to have access to land and with COVID, it’s become almost impossible,” says Isabelle Rod . But perseverance has paid off and Rod is about to start her first full season on her own farm, Vintage Soil Farm, close to Kemptville.
