Shane Liquornik
University of Guelph
Ruben Burga
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An organic and environmentally sustainable farm that leads the way in environmentally friendly agriculture practices in Canada. The New Farm also creates fund-raising initiatives to provide organic and healthy produce to food centres throughout Toronto, and does so in a profitable fashion for all organic and environmentally sustainable farms that partner with The New Farm.
http://thenewfarm.ca/
The innovation of The New Farm is a method of farming organic produce in an environmentally and socially sustainable way. Gillian explained that when people think of organic food they tend to wrongly assume that it is sustainably harvested. However, her farm’s unique procedures were created specifically to fill this gap in the market. In fact, The New Farm has been awarded a number of recognitions as a result of their commitment to this mission. For example, the company has been recognized as a carbon negative farm and they are in the process of creating the first Passive House building in Ontario. In order to ensure that the farm is carbon negative, a lot of machinery work is replaced by human labour (increasing the number of people employed on the farm and reducing the pollution emitted from harvesting). In addition to this, the farm is powered by solar panels and its greenhouses have cold frames and therefore are unheated.
The farm's innovation reaches beyond its positive environmental impact. The New Farm’s social justice component is not only honorable but is inspiring other farms to follow suit. The main social justice campaign of The New Farm is the Farms for Change initiative. Farms for Change is an annual event that raises money to purchase environmentally sustainable organic food from The New Farm and other farms (who follow the same standards) to supply the produce to community food centers. This is not only promoting environmentally friendly organic farms, but also the industry in a sustainable way. This creative event not only promotes social justice, but also responsible business practices as many other farms and restaurants have become part of the Farms for Change event.
In summary, the combination of the innovative environmentally friendly practices and a strong core of giving back has allowed for The New Farm’s success and immense brand loyalty.
The innovation for the company emerged as a result of Gillian and her husband moving back to Canada from their careers abroad in the field of International Development, and her experiences growing up in Vermont and the state’s agriculture industry. Once Gillian moved back to Canada she wanted to look at the biggest problems facing Canada, which led her to focusing on the issues within the food industry. She never intended to farm, however she wanted to feed her family as she used to eat in Vermont where the industry is much more advanced than in Canada. Although she started off farming to feed her family, she later started growing for the community. She ensured that all of her work was focused around her family’s core values which focused on the sustainability of the land and social justice. Considering these values are becoming more commonly held by other individuals, the innovation soon emerged into something that allowed the business to flourish.
Their business innovation does relate to a sense of mission and purpose due to their backgrounds and core values. Gillian’s family wanted not only to investigate the issues facing Canada but also be part of the solution, which has now been able to impact the local community as well as contribute to actively working for a sustainable future by leading other farms in the right direction.
Quotes:
“After we worked for UN, Jimmy Carter, National Democratic Institute, when we moved back to Canada, we wanted to work on the biggest problems facing Canada and then investigated the problems with the food industry in Canada”
“Our vision is to bring on other farms and work with them to how to hold these events [fundraising] ...we are not just raising money it's a great cause furthering social change”
Gillian grew up in a Chef’s household in Vermont, where the food and agricultural industry is "much more advanced than that of Canada’s." Gillian and her husband Brent wanted to feed their children in the same fashion that she experienced growing up, but came to realize how difficult this was to do in Canada. As well, Gillian researched the largest challenges in the agriculture industry in Canada out of interest. She highlighted the environmentally degrading methods of farming organic foods as well as the lack of accessibility of organic foods in the market.
The inspiration to create and maintain an agricultural business in this way stemmed from Gillian referring to herself as “a custodian of the land” in the sense that she works to ensure that The New Farm is different from other organic farms as it takes care of the land, environment, and ensures the sustainable production and consumption of organic and healthy produce. As a result, The New Farm has acquired a prestigious customer base and boasts distinct brand recognition in the Toronto foodie culture and market, so much so that these restaurants are honoured to come and cook at the Farms for Change fundraising event.
The motivation for creating The New Farm was to become the leader in environmentally sustainable organic produce and to lead other farms down this path. This is evident from the work seen in their fundraising initiative Farms for Change.
An important quote from the interview is when Gillian explains that The New Farm puts their “money where their mouth is.” This refers not only to the company’s constant efforts of keeping up with new advances and maintaining a leadership role in the field of environmentally sustainable agriculture in Ontario. Gillian and The New Farm maintain their leadership position by putting their values first. The New Farm has been seen to “turn away customers that do not hold the same values as us.” The fact that The New Farm turns away distributors who have different visions despite losing profits illustrates The New Farms' commitment and work towards being the pioneering company in the field of environmentally sustainable agriculture in Ontario, and that they have not swayed from their original inspirations and commitments since inception.
The New Farm has several impacts on the innovation of business, society, and the environment. Business innovation refers to the introduction of new ideas to a sector. In this particular industry, Gillian was able to develop the growing of organic foods accessible to a larger market. She wanted to be able to raise money to donate the produce and create delivery expenses that were more cost efficient. These ideas changed the way she ran her business; building her farm on values and creating a large impact on society and the environment. By applying her values, she started “grow for the stalk” which was a fundraiser that sent their vegetables and produce to food banks. These innovation strategies were recognized by the Ministry of Agriculture when The New Farm won a premier innovation award for the evolved Farms for Change initiative. For a small business, The New Farm has been able to make local organic foods accessible to three types of markets: high end restaurants (higher cost), retail stores (medium cost), and local businesses with a lower income (lower costs).
The partnerships that The New Farm has created with the local businesses and government agencies in the community has a large effect on its social justice component. The farm is distributing wealth and opportunities as a result of the impact that they have on supporting other organic farms by buying seeds, “creating jobs for foreign workers and providing the smaller farms with connections to their distributors."
The New Farm is now supporting high-end restaurants as they look to use “farm to table and use mainly local product that was not around 12 years ago." This is evident across Ontario. Many local restaurants and chains look to support local farmers in their high-end restaurants. Furthermore, The New Farm “suppl[ies] product to local food stores and not only big chains and restaurants," spreading their product throughout local communities. By creating a social and economic impact for society The New Farm is able to help conquer the Sustainable Communities, Economic Growth, and Innovation goals of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The final aspect of The New Farm’s impact is the environment. The New Farm uses innovative strategies to reduce its environmental footprint and help use clean energy, maintain clean water and sanitation, and support healthy life on land. These goals are satisfied by The New Farm because they are a carbon negative farm, they implement more work by hand rather than the work of machines (i.e. hand washing), the cold frames of greenhouses are unheated, they use solar panels to power their farm, and they are implementing a certified Passive House building. The innovations that this farm uses influence and impact the local community of Creemore but also create value for people to spread, resulting in a chain reaction of initiatives that are leading to sustainable development.
The innovations' benefit to the business is that they allow the business to flourish with minimal marketing expenses. The innovation resulted in the owners of The New Farm being approached by venture capitalists who want to bring other farms under their label. In addition to this, there are restaurants (particularly in the Toronto area) that get a lot of attention when following sustainable practices, and they wish to be a part of the sustainable community. One way of doing this is to have The New Farm's name located on their menu. This is beneficial to the company as it creates a chance to grow and have more brand recognition. This innovation demands the attention of those who are passionate and interested in a more sustainable way of living. People who are interested and can relate to the core values of The New Farm follow the company, resulting in benefits for the business.
The innovations that The New Farm has introduced can all be related to sustainability. They have made it a priority that expanding organic agriculture is more important than exponentially increasing profits. While making profit is important for any business to be successful, they are more concerned about the health of the environment than the profits. They have a policy to not use any additives except for soil testing and believe in a carbon negative farm. When preparing their food, a lot of work is put into the harvesting process considering the harvest is washed by hands instead of machines. The New Farm innovations include other environmentally friendly initiatives, such as using solar panels for energy. All of these sustainable actions are a result of The New Farm doing as much as they can to protect the environment and be suitable custodians for it.
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Gillian Flies, Owner
