Dr. Mike Courey: This Homesteader Makes Hay (Audio)

Episode Synopsis

On this episode of GrowAbility, Joe speaks with Dr. Mike Courey, a farmer and academic, about his transformative journey from academia to farming at New Moon Community Homestead . Located on a 200-acre farm in Southern Ontario, Mike shares how he integrates sustainable agriculture, biodynamic farming, and social justice into his daily work. They explore the challenges of balancing food production with community engagement, and the farm's collaboration with Rose Land Care Association to preserve land for future generations. Mike also reflects on his previous work with the London Poverty Research Center and how it influences his mission to connect urban and rural communities. Tune in for a deep dive into farming as a platform for social change and environmental stewardship.

Transcript

HOLLY:
Joe, you grew up on a farm?

JOE:
No, but it's in the DNA.

HOLLY:
I see. So how do we feel about the word homesteader?

JOE:
Like instead of farmer.

HOLLY:
Yeah, like homesteader insteader farmer.

JOE:
Insteader (laughs)

HOLLY:
Insteader (laughs)

HOLLY:
From web.isod.es, this is GrowAbility, a podcast at the intersection of urban agriculture, food security and community.

JOE:
On this episode, I speak with Urban Homesteader and university professor Dr. Mike Courey.

HOLLY:
Mike runs the New Moon Community Homestead within the Rose Land Care Association, a nonprofit dedicated to sustainable agriculture and land stewardship. When does this guy sleep?

JOE:
I know right? In between his academic work in the city and working on the farm, he's got a truly unique point of view when it comes to bridging urban and rural communities.

HOLLY:
Plus, the way he approaches community ownership and sustainable practices is so refreshing. I think if our city folks really understood food production, it would lead to better food policy and access to healthy foods.

JOE:
Absolutely! And it's kind of open sourced it so that the ideas can be portable to other communities across North America and around the world.

HOLLY:
Totally. And if you, dear audience member, have global ambitions or even just questions, suggestions, ideas for our future episodes, send them to joe@growabilitypod.com.

JOE:
This interview was recorded at Siskinds The Law Firm. Thanks to them for making the time and beautiful space available.

HOLLY:
And now here's the battle of the beards we've all been waiting for! Joe's interview with Dr. Mike Courey.

JOE:
Michael, thank you for being here. You bring so much to talk about that the GrowAbility audience deeply cares about.

MIKE:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

JOE:
The audience will hear your bio in the intro. We'll record it separately. But honestly, where do we even start with you? What does a day in your life look like?

MIKE:
All right. So. Yeah. So we're running a farm called New Moon Community Homestead. And, on that farm, in terms of agriculture, there's a whole there's a there's food processing, there's community development, etc. but in terms of agriculture, what we're doing there is we're growing five acres of vegetables and also, raising, for meat, pigs, chicken and cows and also eggs. So the average day on the farm, right now, we're well, we're coming, we're we're we're coming to the end of the main season of the year in which we're growing the vegetables, animals, etc.. And so usually first thing in the morning is get up, you know, make sure every all the animals are open and out, and take a walk through the gardens, see if there's any major issues we ought to deal with for that day. And then usually we then our team starts coming in around 8:00, 830. And, so my job is to make sure we have our sort of workflow for the day ready, and, you know, whether that's harvesting, planting, a new small building project or whatever it is, sort of get the the game plan together for the day. And, and and coordinate the team. And then from there we get our hands dirty in, in, in whatever the main, thing for the day is. And it's true. Like, it's really between like April and and, October. Really, It's just whatever's the most urgent. And so we're not really working on our long term, bigger projects, like it comes after the season and the kind of off season usually. And, we're just dealing with hours and whatever's most urgent that week, whether again, that whether that be harvesting, whether that be dealing with an animal issue we're having or getting to markets or running events, all those things come- come on.

JOE:
Now you are you're an agricultural renaissance man. And there's another component to you, and that is your very robust academic career.

MIKE:
mmhmmm!

JOE:
Um... How do all those things come together for you?

MIKE:
Well, I've always been so I, I have spent the last, 15 to 20 years, in academia. And I have quite a, quite a, a journey through that, you know, range from a diploma in agriculture into, undergraduate in sociology and business administration and then really graduate school off into sociology, community development, economic development, that kind of world. And, it all comes together because through the academic journey, you know, one of the, you know, observer- observations would be it's hard to be an academic in the sense of we're continuously asking questions; we’re continuously trying to provide answers. But sometimes it doesn't come with the, the practice. And so in my journey, I, I took a lot of time to put the thoughts, the theories, the assumptions that I'm taking in my sociology into action. And so I always did some community development side as well as the academia, research, writing side of things. And, so this kind of all comes together in, this stage of my life, coming to a point where an opportunity arose to, to get into farming, really as a platform for social change around food economy, etc.. And this opportunity came up to really put things into practice and learn things from the ground up. And, so that's really how I see it in my, in my life is, taking a lot of the idea work that I've done and bringing it into practice. And I really do think it's all going to boomerang back into re theorizing and re academic ties.

JOE:
Well, you've definitely put into practice, and you've put into practice with your initiative, New Moon Community Homestead, through the Rose Land Care Association. Could you tell us about those two entities?

MIKE:
All right, so the farm that we're on is in Ailsa Craig, and it's a 200 acre farm. Mixed- You have your sort of cropping fields, about 115 acres. You've got a river, the Ausable River, that runs through and about 50 acres of bush. Just a beautiful, beautiful landscape in Southern Ontario, really. And this farm was, purchased in 1991 by Rose Land Care Association. This was a group of Londoners who came together, who wanted to make contributions into sustainable agriculture, landholding and sort of land stewardship, how to protect the land for future generations. And in 1991, a group of Londoners came together with a couple who was actually on a journey from Germany, who wanted to push forward this model of agriculture and community development, Alex and Ellinor Nurnberg and they were able to gather the funds to purchase this property and formed Rose Land Care Association to hold the land in trust, in perpetuity for future generations. And, and sustainable agriculture. We'll get into biodynamic agriculture. And so Rose Land Care established as a nonprofit upholding this farm. And from then on, there was the farming family Was Alex and Ellinor Nurnberg, who through a, you know, a variation of a tenant landlord relationship, but really a joint partnership in stewarding this farm, farm on that farm for about 25 years. And, and, you know, as many farms have there's, there's challenges of succession when it comes to retirement. And so Alex and Ellinor came into the retirement phase of their farming journey and, you know, there was some chat, some, some search for like, how are we going? How's this farm going to live on with the mission? That is intended for and that search, you know, in over a five year period and, eventually, our family was just in the right spot to be transitioning our own work. And this opportunity, opportunity came up and and we landed there. And so, you know, the mission of Rose Land Care Association is really what brought us to this farm. The mission of protecting land, of taking it off the market for speculation of, using this type of model to, to to, bring new, new types of farming into the future and new food systems, and also, of course, the organic, regenerative biodynamic approach to land stewardship, water stewardship, air. Showing that we can be sustainable, we can sustainably farm and protect those things. So all of that spoke to us as a family, really, at our core, and an end in the background of what I was doing academically around, you know, just social, economic, environmental justice issues. And so it, came forward and we had to develop a model then. Well, what do we do? So there's this farm in transition. There's a beautiful nonprofit that's been holding this and is holding it in in perpetuity for future generations. What kind of enterprise make sense in this, in this work. And so we developed, New Moon Community Homestead as a social enterprise, basically bring the mission of the nonprofit in, into our work as a farming group. And so that's sort of where we were, where we came from.

JOE:
200 acres is a lot of land.

MIKE:
mm-hmmmm!

JOE:
Does New Moon Farm all of that land currently?

MIKE:
So currently, we're farming about 30 acres of that farm. And, in January, February, early, early in 2025, we'll be, farming the rest of that farm. That’s about 115 tillable acres. And so and we just actually through, again, a lot of work with the Rose Land Care Association thinking about what's an appropriate model, that both serves the needs of the community, of the land and of individuals and families. What kind of agreements do we have to have in place? And so we just signed, near the end of, well, earlier this year, a 20 year agreement that really does build in, stability for the farming group and a good runway and mutual benefits for both the Land Care Association and the enterprise. And so, that's where we're headed is it's expanding on to the whole farm. Yeah.

JOE:
So moving on to such a unique farming model,

MIKE:
mm-hmm. were there requirements that that were there expectations that, you had to meet.

MIKE:
So. Well, I think the number one expectation is, is the mission alignment. So, you know, of course, as a nonprofit, a community enter- entity, for a community purpose, well the mission is really the purpose of existing.

JOE:
Right.

MIKE:
And so, we had to be the kinds of people who who fully valued that mission, who had it, hopefully demonstrated it in our own history and our own personal development and our own engagement and community. And, positioned us in a way that made sense that, you know, the mission of the organization. Again, to review, you know, promoting the social and therapeutic aspects of agriculture, holding this land in trust and stewarding it for future generations. Creating urban and rural connections, like really bringing together the farming experience and the urban experience. And then, promoting and pushing forward biodynamic agriculture. That those would be, pieces of our own personality and our own lives that are authentic. And so I think that's really what brought it together was the mission alignment was the first thing. And then from there as well, what are you going to do? How are you going to do this? Because, Because agriculture these days is not a very accessible industry, you might say, or building building enterprises that actually make sense is really difficult in, in agriculture of this size. And so then, in addition to having the value alignment, then it was about, well, the skill set, what kind of business development, knowledge, experience we would have, what kind of agricultural experience? And in those areas, we had, through our own family and personal development. Those were always pieces that we've been developing over the last 20 years. My my mother's side of the family are farmers for about five generations in Quebec. So I had a good, entry into farming by growing up working with, on that family farm, you know, for months at a time throughout my childhood and youth and into my young adulthood, worked on a few other farms in southern Ontario in my younger, young adulthood.

JOE:
Right.

MIKE:
And, so that experience itself, I think, brought in, you know, to my later adult work, like into my late 20s and 30s, which was really about social and economic justice in an urban environment, and different ways of, treating capital and employment and etc. and that all kind of merges together into, I think, what was a attractive skill set both for Rose. They said, okay, here's a family and some people who can hopefully lift this thing into the next stage. And for us, just seeing seeing that this place even existed in southern Ontario, you know, that when we heard and learned about Rose Land Care Association, Sunnivue Farm, this whole that this is what been here for 25 years before and we didn't know much about it. It just felt like fate, like alignment in who we are, who I am, who am I, what we care about as a family and the existence of this land. So in a way, yeah, just that alignment is just wonderful.

JOE:
Let's go back a little bit, biodynamic farming for, folks that are viewing this and listening to this. There may be some questions about that. What is biodynamic farming.

MIKE:
So yeah, so biodynamic farming is an approach to agriculture and, and stewardship that- founded by a philosopher, Rudolf Steiner, going back to the early 20th century. And really, in my mind, Rudolf Steiner and Biodynamics was really an early exploration and, statement of organic farming saying, oh, we gotta stop treating land only as like a commodity and something that's that we can, extract from only. But we have to start thinking about land as a living entity. We have to start nurturing the living energies of soil and be aware of all the various pieces of that. And so biodynamic agriculture, I think, starts from that point. And then Rudolf Steiner, then, you know, develops a whole set of practices that can go along. Some of the more popular aspects of Biodynamics, are various preparations and sprays, like natural sprays that are put on to fields and into soil at different times of year. Those are called preparations. And so that's one component. And but really this, that's one component that we're developing a little bit on the farm. But really the part that I really think, I take out of biodynamics that I think is super important is the, is the is the attention to the, personal and spiritual connection of the farmer and the responsibility of the farmer to the beings of the land, and so that so, in biodynamics and Steiner type of philosophy, is a lot of personal, spiritual and, and development that's required in the consciousness, of course, is never perfect, but it's always cultivated and understanding how that's related to the, the care of spaces and places and soils. And of course, as agriculture is, is not all it's caring for all those beings. But it's also caring in the community. You're providing foods and in fact, one of the some of the earlier, parts of so he has a series of lectures called the agricultural, agricultural lectures, I believe, and sorry. And early on in that, JOE It’s a good read.

MIKE:
Pardon? It is a great read.

JOE:
It’s a good read. It's a good read.

MIKE:
It's a good read. Some of it is pretty thick and some of is pretty direct. But one of the, you know, very fascinating philosophical aspects to think through that they start off with is like the, the notion of, like the food, the foods that we are consuming actually may reflect and be more important than we think in terms of our in terms of our human and spiritual development over time. And, you know, I really do think about that a lot in terms of the kinds of extractions that we do in our society, the kinds of consumption-isms that occur. And I really that's some in some ways, like as a mass analysis, you know, the, the unconsciousness in our society around destroying things and not regenerating them gets reflected in that food, and then we kind of are also feeling and seeing a kind of social breakdown or a social malaise, you know, like maybe there's something to this that like, as we are intentional and sensitive and caring about the thing that sustains us food: air, water, you know, that mind like they con- that that the, focusing or meditating on those that the goodness of those things may actually be really important for the personal development and of course, that is then reflected in the social development of the communities. And I'll just say one more thing about this is that the- like a lot of things like, biodynamics. You know, there's communities of practice and they, they do differ between those different communities, of course. And, and so I don't I'm not very dogmatic about those things. It's really if there's anything about Steiner Steiner's philosophies that I think, are really helpful, it's the importance of the trusting our own intuitions, but developing those intuitions about how we're going to approach the world. And that's, that's a big contrast to a dogmatic approach to any things that we shouldn't- we should avoid dogmatism and be open to learning, development, sharing, etc..

JOE:
Connection. It's a key to sustainability.

MIKE:
Yeah, yeah.

JOE:
And speaking about connection, you have been heavily involved in the London Poverty Research Council.

MIKE:
Research Center, yeah.

JOE:
Sorry. Research Center. How did that come to be?

MIKE:
Yeah. So, so the my work, just before- in 2021, we moved to this farm and and established New Moon Community Homestead. And just prior to that, my work in the City of London or in, in the City of London was, directing the London Poverty Research Center at King's. So that was a research center that was, established back in like 2015, 16, when London went through a- led by the City of London project around, poverty reduction initiatives, trying to convene various sectors of the city to address how are we going to deal with, you know, poverty in London. Why is why is, you know, our childhood poverty in London, one of the highest in the country, etc.. And so out of that initiative from the City of London and various organizations, came the London Poverty Research Center, which was a collaboration really between, King's University College, Sisters of Saint Joseph and the London Food Bank, to, you know, get bring that connection between real world issues and academic, knowledge and mobilizing in a community how do we do all that? And so in the work at the London Poverty Research Center, which I was pretty excited about, you know, like, on the one hand, we were, you know, doing the bean counting work of just like, well, how much poverty is there and where is it? And, and, that's sort of descriptive work. But then, what was exciting about that, that work was it was also about what are we going to do here? Like what can we do? What how are we going to mobilize, inside of London to address the issues of poverty- Both seen and unseen poverty and and even a sensitivity to, like, okay, well, obviously, like, issues of poverty are a local- there's local activities and local issues that we can address. And there's also provincial or national international trends that are affecting it. What are you really going to do about it all right. But really, what I thought the London Poverty Research Center was really great for was that there was a big commitment to figuring out how do we change a system, what role can we play in changing systems to really get to some root issues of that create poverty? So, at the Poverty Research Center, my last two years there or three years there, was actually focused on economic development. And like, how do you restructure local economies to address issues of poverty and precarity? And so, that work, came from a really a national trend. And, and, across the various universities studying precarious employment. Like it was like, oh, geez. So, yes, we see a lot of poverty out there on the street. We see, you know, in terms of mental health and addictions, but there's a lot of invisible poverty also happening that's sort of being generated by our economic structure, like households who are in food insecure, who are also working, who are also accessing the food banks or whatever. And you're saying, well, how's how are they're working? What is this working poor situation. And also, obviously that has something to do with how our economy rewards work. And so that really brought in, a project, that was called Inclusive Economy, London and Region. And it was about looking at just ways of, building more resilient- economic resiliency, rewarding business and industry that actually supports their workers and creates stability in the workforce as opposed to precarity as opposed to, you know, low wage, unpredictability in their work, etc.. And, one of the tools, interesting tools that came out of that work, and that leads me back into this farming work, was a big theme around, community ownership that like that, the. Well, so, you know, in this economy, you know, with too much centralized or privatized ownership, it can be very extractive and like, so, you know, in some way a precarious workforce is actually in the interest of capital accumulation that, you know, the less we pay, obviously, the more we can keep this kind of and I know that there's, there's a it gets more complicated than that. But and anyway, so in this kind of problem came this notion of, well, community and worker ownership that maybe, you know, when things are community owned and have the interest of the community in their mission statement, and they could still be enterprises who are, productive, right, that, that, that community owned enterprises, should and would create more equitable economy. And so that's kind of so we worked a little bit in that area of community ownership, nonprofit ownership of enterprises, social enterprise. And I really think there's something there in terms of the future. And so then you fast forward a little bit, end up on a farm.

JOE:
Yeah.

MIKE:
That's already protected by a nonprofit. That's already community owned in that regard, that's already has a mission embedded in it. And okay, so now what does the enterprise look like that's actually going to be hopefully equitable and inclusive and all that. But you know, just briefly, what do we get to the practice again. So. you’re developing a social enterprise in this way in a field like food production and agriculture, it's really hard.

JOE:
Well, and there's and there's a lot there, and developing or researching where there's disconnections. Coming to conclusions and then developing connections and then going from academia to organizational development. There's a lot there.

MIKE:
There's a lot there.

JOE:
So there was a lot where you came from, you know, with you, with your work, with the London Poverty Research to the farm. So can we talk about taking that experience and. You know, with a community farm, you know, there's a lot of organizational development. And how does that look being not being in a big center, being in a rural area.

MIKE:
Yeah, yeah. So, so, moving out to the farm and positioning to, to get started on a project like New Moon Community Homestead. The work we did in the city beforehand was actually extremely valuable, even in that, like, wonderful relationship was built in, in many different organizations in the city already. A great community of people like we were all involved in Old East Village, back, you know, all the way back to late 2009. And it's kind of, exciting, you know, community economic development, during, during so a bunch of those years, and organizing things like, like again with that, my, really strong commitment to, like, academia and practice and doing things, you really got some good experience in, like, coordinating, coordinating people, coordinating events, coordinating budgeting things, finding grants, writing grants, administering grants, all of that comes to life also in the farm world, and on on this, on this farm. And so I can get into describing some of those relationships.

JOE:
Sure

MIKE:
Maybe, so... So several relationships really anchored us on that farm with organizations in London. So one of those, and they align with values so we can go over that.

JOE:
Of course. Like so on the one hand, from a food security point of view, because, you know, again, we're really sensitive to not just being a food producer for already well-off people. Like, I know, you know, I get it from a business point of view. Sometimes a recommendation is not just look for your elite clients and keep those elite clients, they're going to pay what's actually what it's worth. So that's which is where you.

JOE:
Go where the money is (laughs).

MIKE:
Yeah. You kind of. And you know what? I gotta- truthfully, at the end of the day, in some regard you might have to. Like you might not survive as a farm, as a small scale farm. These farms are dying by the day. That's right. So, that's that's a serious issue. But there's other are ways of you have to be really creative about how to deal with that reality and then the realities of food insecurity and, and wanting to ensure that you have accessible, organic foods for people. And anyway, so, so some of the ways that we do that, like some of the low hanging ways that that came up early. One is the London Food Coalition.

JOE:
Yes.

MIKE:
So, you know, again, with the work in the poverty sector and I was I did the stuff in the homelessness sector and things like that. So we just- great relationships and the London Food Coalition was, in a stage where, basically they had coolers in town, right?

JOE:
Right. Yep.

MIKE:
Mobile coolers on wheels. And these coolers were being vandalized on a very regular basis. There was a difficulty, protecting them. There was issues going on. And and we were moving to this farm and, and through this conversation, it turned out: okay, well, you know, what if, if, if, we can support the farm by lending you these coolers and letting you use them for food storage, which will allow you to grow and be prosperous food producers in the region. You know, then we have a commitment to the Food Coalition to bring foods into the city because that many farms, particularly in produce your you produce surpluses and often and we have neighboring farms in that we can also collect food from and bring into the city. So so it's really great relationships like that. And it's been super meaningful to allow a social enterprise to get established, as well as in giving a- helping us a have our mission alignment for addressing food insecurity. So so that's one of the ways.

JOE:
Yeah.

MIKE:
Another one is around, issues of precarious or around employment, we'll say.

JOE:
Yeah.

MIKE:
And so, I know, Joe, you were working here at Hutton House.

JOE:
I am.

MIKE:
Representative. And and our relationship with Hutton House has been extremely meaningful for the development of New Moon Community Homestead and social enterprise because, on the employment side, yeah, we want to give provide opportunities for people to engage in meaningful work that's satisfying to their own personhood and also contribute to building a better future. And so, through Hutton House, we've been able to hire several people, in particularly in our seasonal work, to start being trained and being, experienced what food production and farming has been all about. And the alignment there, you know, with Hudson House focusing in on urban agriculture, food, food production, and food security, you know, this, this, this kind of organizational relationship then allows us to be part of that kind of movement as well. And this is like, hands down, amazing. This is this, this this allows us to, be that this allows us to fulfill our social, enterprising mandates and has been super good, like every placement that we've had coming through the farm. Has, has led to good things. So, so that those are a couple of the organizational relationships that really have allowed us to start, establish and be stronger, and hopefully has allowed us to be also be a big to be a good contributor back into the community.

JOE:
Speaking of that, something that, we talked a lot about, many times, is the urban and rural connection.

MIKE:
Mmm-hmmm!

JOE:
And it's something that you mentioned that's part of, of the mandate.

MIKE:
Yeah.

JOE:
What's the link? Why?

MIKE:
Yeah. Why the urban and rural, eh? Well, I said at minimum the foods that we're eating are largely coming still from rural environments.

JOE:
Right

MIKE:
Right. And, there's a lot probably in both directions that can be learned and shaped from mixing, rural, rural thinking, rural experience, rural life, with urban, like with, the different views and perspectives on the world. Now from a food production and food security, food, policy point of view, it seems to me extremely important, the more that we have open access to farms, that urban people can visit rural places and actually kind of see and feel an authentic farming experience, and learn about the challenges, learn about the strengths, etc., that we could then have a much more informed food policy environment. So this is, without it, you know, as the urban environment becomes more or, detached from food production or farms, then it's harder to create good farming policy because, one who's going to support it is the information that's being used to support new policy, actually accurate, relevant, those kinds of things. A really challenging- So I think that that's a big part of the urban rural connection. And then also, and, you know, experiences of children who come on to farms, like we, we do a lot of, farm tours, sort of play days on the farm. We have a membership base of the farm specifically for families who can then integrate their lives, city lives, into farming life a little bit. And, I think in child development, having that experience from a young age, seeing and feeling some of the great things and some of the really kind of not so nice things of, of, of farming and eating meat specifically or dealing with animals, you know, those are impressionable on young people's minds. And so I think it has a lot to it could could inform directions people choose to go in positive ways. And, things like that.

JOE:
I think. So when I, when I think of your work in the rural focus, it and how the farm does welcome, you know, urban community members it comes back to the urban and it it sparks, you know, thoughts around urban agriculture.

MIKE:
Mmm-hmm. And how do you see that, that urban agriculture spark, working towards poverty alleviation.

MIKE:
Yeah, urban agriculture has huge potential. Right. Like there's there's wonderful projects already in London. You know, Urban Roots, The PATCH in the Cavendish Garden, even some in terms of the private sector enterprises around, greenhouse growing or hydroponic growing over at the Western Fair where you probably you're seeing some significant food production in non rural kind of nonagricultural spaces in a way. And so, the more that we can produce, obviously. Yeah, the more that we can produce food. There's so many benefits in producing food in an urban environment. You know, the environmental, component of it, transportation, etc.. The closeness of that experience. And so, yeah, you know what? Growing vegetables and vegetables can go a long way in a small plot, can go a long way into a household, you know? So in terms of food security, yeah. Being inspired and supported to be able to grow foods, people can be that much more self resilient. And households can be that better fed. Now cracking the code on how to get there. Like, you know, there there's it's I think I do think there's something, like Cavendish Garden and Urban Roots are cracking a code of some kind of like- Because it's really hard to put that whole responsibility on to already a family who's overly burdened.

JOE:
Yes.

MIKE:
Might be having a lot of various challenges inside the household. How are we going to start growing our own garden? Right. So there's something to it there around community gardening, where organizations support neighborhoods to grow and start distributing in a way like free food into the neighborhoods, addressing that food insecurity. Like, there's such a promise there. Now, I think it's, you know, worth noting, like, can urban well, can urban agriculture, feed the entire city in a way like, you know, being able to both build community in the rural in terms of supporting food into the city and build urban agricultural systems that are intentionally distributing food and to, low income households that there's a great mix there.

JOE:
There is.

MIKE:
Yeah.

JOE:
There's an environmental sustainability

MIKE:
Mmm-hmm.

JOE:
aspect to family farms, to, to community farms.

MIKE:
Mmmm.

JOE:
What does that mean to you?

MIKE:
So the environmental sustainability. Well, I do I first of like an urban agriculture that's a very strong, sustainable component is the not having less transportation. Right? Less, needing fuel to move foods. But from a again, when you go back to the rural, you got a, there's a whole other set of issues sort of stacking up. So where to start? Like I think, you know, primarily like the one of the largest is like just chemicals going into the soil and into the water, like where we go, we see our, our soy and bean fields that are really surrounding our city. Much more than something like vegetables or fruit production. Yeah, there's questions to ask about what's going into those fields, how how, how or where are those, pesticides going to, or are they going into the food or are they going into the soil or are they going into the water? That's a huge issue. And, small scale farms can have a lot to contribute to that. In terms of, it's just a totally different mindset on how to approach land and food when you're thinking about directly feeding communities. So, so, it's something that blows my mind like a few things have blown minds. And as an urban ish person emerging into the rural community and thinking about all these things, yeah, the one thing that I don't want, I don't see why we don't have more vegetables and fruit production.

JOE:
Yes.

MIKE:
Is it incentivized? Is it not incentivized? What's the reason why we don't have more fruit and vegetable production? Right close to the city that's feeding right into the city? Because you can feed a lot of people off an acre.

JOE:
Yes, you can.

MIKE:
I got other- we can go through a whole list of reasons maybe why that’s not happening. But there's one question I have about perplexing idea- things observing in the rural, and then the other part about the rural and food production that's standing out to me is where there's a lot of crops being grown out there.

JOE:
Yes, there are.

MIKE:
over a lot of huge pieces of land. I'm thinking, where's the animals? Like, where are the animal side of this? Because at least I get, in a biodynamic sense. And I think in, I scientific sense, when you extract take things out of land, out of soil, you've got to put things back in. And so the biodynamic way of doing that is really focusing in on your animal manures, composting, manures and reapplication on the land that you've taken from. So this is this one blows my mind like you're driving all the way. You got this area all the way up, really Into Windsor-Essex area. Huge land and no animals. Something- whoa, whoa, where are these nutrients coming from? How are we getting nutrients back in? And are these, sustainable nutrients? So, so in, in a farm like, New Moon Community Homestead, Rose Land Care Association, where we bring these principles, we're really trying to create a balance between nutrient extraction and nutrient input, all within a sort of a semi-closed system.

JOE:
Right

MIKE:
Yeah.

JOE:
Well, and that- I think that goes back to connection. And it's something that we, you know, that seems to come up a lot on the podcast, we were talking about connection and we're talking about disconnection. But being driven towards connection. Let's be positive.

MIKE:
Yeah.

JOE:
Is there a grand unification theory? Connecting poverty, inclusion, urban agriculture and environmental stewardship, you know, from from Mike's mind.

MIKE:
So the connections across. And yeah, addressing this is kind of like, are there certain activities, in the food agricultural sector that can address multiple sorts of social problems.

JOE:
That we can- that we can draw it all together,

MIKE:
Mmm-hmm.

JOE:
and you know, we can champion things like urban agriculture, alleviate poverty, maybe.

MIKE:
So the way- here's what I approach it, I like because I go, I got big dreams.

MIKE:
I'm a big dreamer

JOE:
Good this is good. We need those.

MIKE:
We're gonna, you know, make the world a better place through what we're doing. We're gonna- from a very privileged person, you know, great family, decent economic history. I'm gonna do what we- Sacrifice what we can to really make the world a better place. That's, you know, at the same time, I temper that with, like, okay, well, my, what I do in the world isn't the isn't everything. There's a lot of a lot of important things to be done. And so when I think about the farming, the agriculture, food insecurity, environmental problems in there, the first thing I say is, what can we can we contribute to the solutions? Can we, you know, we can be contributors,

JOE:
Right.

MIKE:
Rather than like the solve the solution maker. And so I don't we don't want to over overreach, you know, what we can do on a 200 acre farm in terms of changing the whole world. But all that being said, no, I really think that this integration of like, community land ownership. So we're you're you're bringing purpose to ownership, right? Through ownership or holding. And really, even then in that in the community of Rose Land Care Association, there's actually a resistance to the whole notion of ownership.

JOE:
Yes. Yes there is.

MIKE:
that it's really like land stewardship and holding and protecting. That's really what the title is for. You have the title to the land to protect the land. Right? So that that, that, that right there is radically transformative when you think about agriculture and farms. And then when you think about housing and urban property like that, that to me is that's enough for me to jump right on this project and do it for the rest of my life. Absolutely. I'm like, so we're going to think about holding land differently and who's allowed to and how we're going to treat it from an extraction to a stewardship mentality.

JOE:
The land’s part of the equation.

MIKE:
So sure, let's just go start there and and promote that whole concept and then, mix that, you know, community ownership and holding of land, with then supporting food production and social enterprises. Oh, geez. Like now we're into you got a double model going on. You got a, you know, hopefully something that some that do well have to be funded in terms of holding land. And then you've got real enterprising, social enterprising that, you know, you can get supports in various ways, but also will be fairly self regenerative in terms of a successful business. You know, so we've got now protected land and you've got a mission oriented business that is looking for economic sustainability, but also mission alignment and everything that's going on. And you're like, oh, now you've got them, you've got something going on here, right? And of course, and so from our, our dream would be holy geez. Rose Land Association has, has pushed forward a model of holding land for future generations. New Moon Community Homestead has developed an enterprise that that that slowly becomes ever more impactful in the food system and the and the region. And starts to grow that model, of course, into other farms, like so being able to hold other farms, other land in a, in this kind of way and nurture the nurture and protect because the truth is farmers, farmers and the, the ones doing the work need a lot of protection.

JOE:
They do.

MIKE:
Because it's a volatile, food system like, the trends in food production in the rural are not, promising in terms of, having new farmers join in having, organic and less, having organic really practices expanding. Not very promising. We we need to both. It's what feels kind of strange in the work we are because we're kind of like, what are we? Are we a private? Are we a private business? You know, are we just lining someone's pockets like so when someone who supports New Moon is I just, you know, drive driving money into, private ownership pockets or what's going on. Right. But really, when you get a good look at, the, food system, it's it's. Well, it's super aware. We need organizations who protect farmers.

JOE:
Yes.

MIKE:
because we're going to lose all the farmers, and it's going to become it's going to continue to massify... It's going to be continue to be the trend has been, less farms, more land and, and smaller margins. So then, you know, you can't you're not going to make a farmer is not going to make a living on 300 acres of corn and soy. Now, you need 1100 acres to be to make a living. Those are the specifics.

JOE:
No, of course.

MIKE:
But that kind of that kind of a massive buying of agriculture, and that's just simply soy and corn, let alone you get into that real food that people are going to eat. Right. And now we need processing facilities. we need we need to be able to. Yeah. Whether new equipment. We need, efficiencies in, in actually working the land in a in positive ways and, and harvesting etc. like there's a whole, there's a whole lot of support. That's not about profit making. That's needed to, to expand this community farming kind of way of doing things.

JOE:
We need more of it.

MIKE:
We need more of it, and it needs to be protected.

JOE:
And it needs to be protected.

MIKE:
Or needs protectors, I should say.

JOE:
Yes. Let's talk about your approach to knowledge mobilization, community organization and bringing about sustainable solutions to social and economic and environmental issues.

JOE:
A lot....

MIKE:
Yeah!

JOE:
...but these are these are all points that we've chatted about and they're all- they've, they've like like the river that runs through the farm, they've run through your work.

MIKE:
Yeah.

JOE:
How do you, how do you, how do you not only gather the knowledge but share the knowledge, you know, as, as both, you know, an academic, and somebody that that has a lot of work that they primarily do hands on.

JOE:
How do you...

MIKE:
Yeah.

JOE:
How do you how do you mobilize that knowledge?

MIKE:
Yeah. Well, I'll say for, to me, it's always a long game, like it's always it takes some years to establish a farming practice. That’s just the practice. Then you got your and then you have the community development component, and then you've got the- and then you got the knowledge mobilization and sort of social movement component of it all. And so, first off, a lot of patience is required.

JOE:
Of course.

MIKE:
Like years. We're talking years, right. Like you've lives- lifetimes, and not like, oh, we can just jump into something and within two years is have all these metrics that we hit. So that's really important because we do get into the community of the farming at times when folks- some, something, sometimes people want to see results a lot faster. And is farming is year by year like even they what they say about a farmer is like, you got 30 chances in your life, you know, you got 30 seasons. Yeah, you're going to make that season. So you got to learn from that season. Then you got to learn the next season. And so that itself is you know, there's not a- is 30 a lot doesn't?

MIKE:
it doesn't feel like a lot!

JOE:
It doesn't feel like a lot.

MIKE:
It could be the 10th season before you feel like, oh shoot. Oh we forgot about this thing. So so there's always there is a big long game to it all, that’s important. However, passion and commitment go a long way. So- this is another one is I'm sure in urban environments you get similar platforms, but the farm becomes a platform is the truth. So yes, yes, we got to we're a crazy hard to just be farmers just to be growing stuff. Then we got to be work crazy hard to be making stuff out of the food. So food processing and figuring it out economically viable models for doing it all, but really at the heart and soul of it. And I do think this is why, it's it's been a good experience on the farm. Like people we, we've experienced a lot of, growing up. What blessings are like people arriving to the farm and gifting the farm good things. And, and I do think that's because, or partly because, it's what we want to achieve in the social, environmental and economic sense, is is apparent. And so the farm becomes a platform for those conversations. Right? Whether that's when we have children coming on for day camps or whether that's when we have a Hutton House group come out for tours and discussions about food, or whether that's when we have a group of students from Huron come and stay on the farm for a week, and we talk about land trusts and food security, things like that. Right. Or a Sustainable Development Goals. Or there's there's so many avenues to be sharing, experiences about farming and social, economic, environmental justice. So, so it's got to get built into the DNA...

JOE:
Yes

MIKE:
...of the farm. of the farm team, like the folks who are working on the farm. That has to be also important in our in our culture of even talking to each other about these are these are the things that we're going to spend our time talking about, on and off work. Right? And thinking about and sharing about. And so it's a little I guess that's part of the community that you can build on. And it is true: a farm, allows you to build a pretty fun community of diverse people. There's so many interests that you can have on a farm, right? I can I can enjoy fishing or I can enjoy weeding or you can enjoy birdwatching. And, or I could just be super passionate about food security. And so you can have all these different people coming together. And it's really important, I think, to keep that diversity going. That's not being dogmatic. It's extremely important to keep diversity in farming on, in communities. I'm talking about diversity and thinking, but also diversity. And just like, racial diversity, we're really enjoying in the rural as in, really some of the days that make me so in our, in our community members, we have a great mix of BIPOC community members. And that theme in farming is really important to us in terms of, of, really bringing- I don't know how- bringing color to the rural because the rural is sometimes overly white. And it's really important- And we had one one of our members who go to school in our area, you know, kids, experiencing some pretty severe racism, right, in school. And so for us, we we feel like, well, the more that we can bring color and diversity in the community and be with the community, because we are- and with the community, the better things can be.

JOE:
The farm is a catalyst to build an inclusive community.

MIKE:
Really truly is.

JOE:
That's pretty good. Yeah.

JOE:
Yeah, And so and it's a funny it's a strange thing because as a sociologist- like so in one way it can feel like sometimes we're just in our own little micro world. Yes.

JOE:
Yes.

MIKE:
And one way we are, we're like, there's 200 acres and growing this stuff and having people in and out, like, that's a whole world in itself. Like, I don't need to look at that. Well, I don't, I don't- the news sometimes doesn't make it into our brain.

JOE:
If you need a tag, it could be an inclusive micro world.

MIKE:
Yeah. There you are. It's a micro world. But of course, nobody is super important that we don't- that we're not really a micro world. Like that, that- yeah, that we- Because I- what, what can we- you know, we don't want to be escaping the world. We don't want to be escaping. Just creating a nice subcultural space where we can, I don't know, get along with each other only. Right. That's good stuff. But, we want to be engaged in the world, like, engaged in the issues of social, economic and environmental justice that is, you can't do that if we're only staying to ourselves.

JOE:
No.

MIKE:
etc. we had to. That's part of a whole a whole way of of, building a community. Right. So it’s valuing both things.

JOE:
On that. Inclusive Economy London Network.

MIKE:
Yeah!

JOE:
Let's talk about that.

MIKE:
So inclusive economy is- The project. It was called the Inclusive Economy London and Region.

JOE:
Yes.

MIKE:
This started about 2019 or 2018. In our work at the London Poverty Research Center,

MIKE:
it was funded by the Atkinson Foundation.

JOE:
OK.

MIKE:
which was out of Toronto. And, Atkinson Foundation, It's one of the one of the few funders who- their tagline or their like sole focus almost is economic justice was like, oh yeah.

JOE:
That's cool.

MIKE:
So, you know, you oftentimes you get like maybe social or food security. This was just like no economic justice. How are we going to make the economy more fair?

JOE:
Yeah.

MIKE:
Which is a really hard territory to work in. But- so Atikinson Foundation funds it, funded it to, yeah, build notions to, to really address those issues of the systemic issues of precariat- precarity in our society. so what we did was we looked, amazing support from organizations in London who have again, mission alignment. We were able to at least start the conversations around what what can be done in a city like London to create a more inclusive economy, to create an economy - this is the fun part - an economy which, by design, solves the problems that we're talking about. Right? So like, why does that rather rather than having to- OK, so, you know, the notion would be in an extractive economy or, or what we can refer to today sort of as in a capitalist economy, there's a lot of motivations to extract; to- to harm.

JOE:
Yes.

MIKE:
Because ... pretty- it’s pretty clear that if I can take more out and get more for our industry or ourselves, you know, then the ones who are harmed, hopefully we can just move on from. And, so there's a lot of work in the US and the Atkinson Foundation and different parts around what they call commute, the community wealth building approach, community wealth building. I think in the UK, they've even got this community wealth building approach, which is about finding parts of the economy that are more mission aligned for the community and harnessing the economic, power of those institutions. So take an example. A hospital, public institution, right. One of the largest, employers in our region. Maybe not, if not the largest employer in our region, a budget, you know, in the billions to spend. And so you say so, so, so there's a public institution with a mission, right, for health and and creating more health. And so, in this approach of Inclusive Economy London, or which could also be referred to in community wealth building, the idea is you you pull together institutions that have these mission alignments. Right. So a hospital. A university is also a public institution with a mission for like, you know, developing citizens for the future, etc.. University, hospital, the municipality is also an institution which, has within its mission, you know, the betterment of the community. So you take these, these public semipublic institutions, bring ‘em together; which also have some of the largest budgets in the entire region, as they're spending huge dollars. And so one of the components of Inclusive Economy London, was called the Anchor Collaborative. It was to bring these institutions together, assess, look at our budg- look at the joint budgets. So like say you know, how many billions of dollars are we spending and can we shift any of those dollars to support industries that are creating community benefit. Right. Right. So you take, say, the food budget for a hospital. You know, if we shift, a small portion of that, how much, industry can be developed that, you know, promotes decent work, promotes food security, etcetera. Can we can we use those dollars to incentivize private sector activity, really. So that's one of the that's one of the arms. There was a few different arms, really, but that was one of the more exciting ones.

JOE:
So, a lot of your work, how could, a community member get involved in some of the initiatives that you've participated in or participating in?

MIKE:
Well, I, I would say like, so so that might in the current situation, I am all in 100% on developing the, the New Moon Community Homestead and the, sort of Rose Land Care Association, Land Trust kind of models. And so to get involved and that's in that world, there's, great ways. There's one, you know, just from a farm support point of view. So we so as New Moon, we run a community- One of our main programs is the community homestead membership. So you become a member of the farm, which can range from anything from just financial contribution of being a member, being part of the various activities that we do, to also receiving food weekly, and being participating on the farm. So we have a community homestead membership quite accessible and, and, that's a really great way to get involved, from there, just even, so there's volunteerism opportunities on the farm just to slowly get involved, bring skill sets, etc.. And then there's also volunteerism with the, Rose Land Care Association, this whole land landholding side of things and governance and all that sort of stuff.

JOE:
Okay. We've talked about a lot of stuff. Is there anything that we missed, anything you want to talk about? Wow.

MIKE:
Wow. No, we talked pretty much about the heart and soul of...

JOE:
We got. We got to it.

MIKE:
...what we were after. Probably. Yeah. That's the that's the world of. You always got all the whole world of thoughts. I have. BOTH: [laughter]

JOE:
Okay. I've only got one last question.

MIKE:
Yeah.

JOE:
What keeps you growing. I gotta- the beauty of that land. I got to say, like being in the being, because, like, life, it gets real tough some days. But I've learned, rather than getting really frustrated or emotional overreacting about it all, sometimes it's one thing about being in that rural, rural area with this work is like just stopping and looking at the amazing things that are growing, or the river or the the sunrise in the morning and the luck! I, I feel extremely blessed to even be there. Like, that's a privilege to even be on that in that land. That's one thing that you really keeps me growing. I guess the other. Well, I've, you know, how could you, also have four children? Yeah, like four children. I've, I've got a lot of, motivation to to to keep growing, to be better. Better for the family and then also better and better in the for the community, you know, in the community. I'm really, really strong in me, for me is the importance of, of being a recognizing my own flaws. BOTH: [Laughter] Being humble and not not not allowing myself to be dragged down, like, those are all important features of, for me about being a vibrant human,

JOE:
Well, okay. Where can people find out more about the work you're doing, specifically New Moon Community Homestead?

MIKE:
Yeah, I think the easiest place would be a website.

JOE:
Okay.

MIKE:
newmooncommunityhomestead. ca. You can also have, we we we well, we're just coming to the end of our series that we've done called Farm Gate Fridays.

JOE:
Yes. So these are the we're the second Friday of each month. Okay. We were hosting sort of on farm markets, music tours, etc..

JOE:
Mike, thank you for everything you do to address some really challenging societal issues and for being with us here today.

JOE:
Well, thank you. My pleasure. ADAM: \GrowAbility is hosted by Joe Gansevles and Holly Pugsley. And produced by Joe Gansevles and Adam Caplan. Special thanks to this week's guest, Dr. Mike Courey. Lighting and camera design by Kevin Labonte with production support from Oliver Gansevles. GrowAbility’s production was made much easier with the help of Jesse Chen, Terry Fujioka, Zack Grossman, Zachary Meads, Leo Shin, and Debora Camargo from Fanshawe College's Broadcasting: Relevision & Film Production Program. Thanks to Janice Robinson from Fanshawe for arranging for these students invaluable participation. Holly Pugsley of Just Keep Growing provided the plants and made sure they looked great. Audience and Marketing Strategy by Japs Kaur Miglani with support from Doruntina Uka and Tess Alcock. Our theme music is Wandering William by Adrian Walther and can be found on Sound Stripe. Thanks as well to Hubert Orlowski for providing technical and audio engineering advice to help our podcast sound great. Adam Kaplan. That's Me is webisodes executive producer and Sammy Orlowski is our senior creator. Special thanks to Jennifer Rowley from Siskins, the law firm, for arranging to host us at their beautiful head office in downtown London, Ontario. Grow ability is a webisodes production and is produced with the support and participation of the team of the team at the patch and Houghton House.