Canada: Micro farms play big role in local food chain
‘I think it’s an answer to a need for connection with nature,’ says Melissa Winkler of Muddy Creek Farm
By Andrew Coppolino
CBC News
Aug 27, 2022
Excerpt:
A couple of hundred metres off Queen’s Bush Road in Wellesley, you’ll find Muddy Creek Farm owned and operated by Melissa Winkler.
Despite its setting in the rural township, the quarter-acre farm is situated beside a village residential area and only a few blocks from a chop house, a computer repair shop and a financial services business.
Muddy Creek is, in that sense, something of an “urban” farm and one that, its size notwithstanding, is dedicated to farming in an ecologically friendly way to provide fresh food to the community through its weekly vegetable boxes.
Over the last several years, a number of small or micro farms with unique qualities have appeared that are similarly dedicated to sustainable agriculture that nurtures the soil and environment and the community around it.
For Winkler, who calls herself a small-scale farmer and market gardener, community connection is a “core value.”
“It’s connection to the earth by working with and learning from the functions of ecological relationships. We seek to promote diversity on our farm and connection to community,” Winkler said.
That is not to say, of course, that larger farms aren’t community-driven and stewards of the land, but it is a defining feature of small farms, often with a single farmer working the fields and selling the produce.
