{"id":11124,"date":"2011-07-25T12:31:55","date_gmt":"2011-07-25T17:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=11124"},"modified":"2011-07-25T12:32:54","modified_gmt":"2011-07-25T17:32:54","slug":"machine-shop-employee-shares-the-fruits-of-ethical-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2011\/07\/machine-shop-employee-shares-the-fruits-of-ethical-farming\/","title":{"rendered":"Machine shop employee shares the fruits of ethical farming"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ryan

Ryan and Amanda Thiessen show off some of their vegetables at Brock.<\/p><\/div>\n

From Monday to Friday, Ryan Thiessen is a machinist in Brock\u2019s Technical Services Machine Shop. But every week, he serves another role on campus \u2013 vegetable delivery man.<\/p>\n

Thiessen and his wife Amanda, who graduated from Brock with a degree in History in 2008, own Creek Shore Farms<\/a> near Jordan, where they produce food safely, organically and ethically in an era dominated by factory farms. They also donate about 15 per cent of their produce to Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold. For this, the couple recently received a $10,000 Small Business Big Impact Challenge award from Scotiabank.<\/p>\n

The farm operates on a co-op model, which means its members pay an annual fee for a regular supply of food. Each week, the Thiessens park their pick up truck in the corner of Zone 1 to deliver vegetables to their 17 clients at Brock.<\/p>\n

Lisa Wilson, assistant at Brock\u2019s Science Stores, is a loyal customer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice to know where your food comes from,\u201d she said. \u201cIt’s an overall healthier option to shopping in a grocery store where you don\u2019t always know how fresh the items are.”<\/p>\n

With Thiessen\u2019s produce, she said, \u201cyou can definitely tell a difference in the flavour.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Thiessens produce a variety of chemical-free vegetables. They have tomatoes, and carrots, and potatoes. \u201cBasically, if it\u2019s a vegetable, we grow it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

They also raise animals, including geese, ducks and lambs, as well as produce eggs. At their farm, though, the animals eat grass and have space to roam.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hand weed everything,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know every animal. There\u2019s one chicken that roams the yard and doesn\u2019t go with the other chickens. It\u2019s effectively turned into a pet.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are currently 37 shareholders. The cost of a share ($575, although half shares are also available) gets the shareholder nearly a bushel of vegetables per week. This year, they are also offering a winter program.<\/p>\n

The origins of Thiessen\u2019s 10-acre farm date back to 2009, when they did a youth gardening project in Vineland through their church. Last year, they started a farm of their own.<\/p>\n

As for the Community Care aspect, \u201cwe believe everybody deserves to eat good quality fresh local produce,\u201d he said. They saw some of the other produce donations to the organization, and \u201cto be honest, it\u2019s stuff I\u2019d feed the chickens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farming, he said, is a little like working in the machine shop. At one job, he\u2019s producing fresh local food. At the other, he is building innovative solutions for faculty and staff on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have a small farm, you\u2019re always repairing things or inventing stuff,\u201d he said. \u201cSo there are some similarities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ryan Thiessen arrives at his work every Friday with a truck full of fresh local produce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,1],"tags":[268,157,269],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11124"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11136,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11124\/revisions\/11136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}