Farm Feature interview: Don Howard from Howard's Farm

Don Howard: the man, the myth, the farmer

What do you enjoy most about your work?

What I enjoy most is the interaction with the public. It gives you an opportunity to educate people on things that they don't understand cuz they don't teach it in school. Did you know an egg has an air sac at one end, the big end, but the fridges are all set up to store that egg upside down. Air wants to rise so if you store it with the air sack on the top, it won't age as quickly. 

The people today I think they're looking for two things: they're looking to connect directly to a farm and they're looking to be a little bit educated on why we should buy local and fresh; and what makes the stuff coming from a farm maybe possibly better for their health and more nutritional than what they're getting out of the store. Now some stores, in all fairness, are doing a really good job on keeping their produce fresh. Not everything in the store is a bad choice and I don't want to be bad-mouthing all the stores cuz I believe that the stores are doing for the most part the best they can, but head office dictates that if you supply the store you have to be able to supply all year round. That puts the locals at a disadvantage because we can't supply stuff like strawberries all year round. I mean we do a pretty good job but there is a time of the year when we haul them back up from Texas.

What's the biggest change you've seen in farming since you've started and how have you adapted to it?

Oh technology for sure. We run with some GPS as well so that fertilizer gets spread more evenly, seeds get counted based on size (because each bag might have a different number of seeds in it) even though the seeds may be smaller or bigger you get the same number of plants per acre.

I don't milk cows but you know the technology for milk and cows. We started milking cows I mean we milked by hand and now, the milk comes right from the teat into the tank, and minimum of three to seven filters before it even hits the tank. Anybody who thinks food isn't safe now, it’s safer than it ever was. Food in Canada, if it's produced in Canada, man we have some of the safest food in the world. 

I mean you can't go out there and just spray you have to have a license and rightfully so because we shouldn't be overspraying. Not only for the pollution part but also for the financial part of just doing it right. That's what needs to be conveyed to the General Public that farmers aren't a bunch of hillbillies. I got into a situation and they asked me what I did. I told them I'm a CEO. I said don't mark me down as a farmer cuz you guys think that farmers are some kind of peasants. Did you know that we weld, we can change bearings, we do electrical, we do veterinary?

What is one major thing you would like to share with someone who has never been to a farm about what you do and why farming is important?

Everything comes down to economics. Well, not everything that comes down to economics but economics plays an awful part in a farmer's decision with what he has to do. The margins are not, they're just not there because farmers buy retail and sell wholesale. No other industry does that. If they buy retail, they sell retail. Most of the carpenters, the home builders, they buy wholesale and sell retail and farmers are just the opposite. They're the only group, except maybe fishermen, yeah fisherman fall into the same group as farmers. They're selling their fish wholesale and they're buying their stuff retail. Yeah, farmers and fishermen. Other than that I don't know any other group.

So when people are like can you cut a better deal, well this is the problem, when people ask you to cut a better deal there's just not enough room in there. That's why some of the apple farms have gone to selling their own apples on the road or at least some of them to the road they're bringing them into market.

The last thing I’ll say is, my interactions with the general public are to make them a little bit aware of why, for security reasons, insurance reasons, disease reasons, we don’t want you on our property. It’s not that we don’t like you or, don’t want you, it’s for safety reasons. Like, get a load of this, I had two Charolais cows that were mean suckers, I mean I sold them because they were dangerous. The one had a calf and the neighbours kids were going out there and I said “get the hell outta there.” “Oh we’re just going to look”, and I said, “you don’t understand that cow will kill you, that cow almost killed me, and I know what I’m doing.” I mean, they have no idea. Like, before you pet a dog, you ask the owner if it’s ok. You don’t know. Maybe the dog makes strange, or maybe it doesn’t like kids, maybe the dog is from a place where it was abused. Before you reach down and pet a dog, it’s just common courtesy to ask.

Thank you so much, Don, for your grounded, down-to-earth wisdom and stories.