Stewart Organic Farms
Apples & apple cider, highbush blueberries, and other mixed berries
Alan Stewart grew up in Nova Scotia on his parent’s farm – in the shadow of the economic export boom when many industry-export farms were slowly going under. As a child, he was strongly discouraged from considering farming as a future, and went to school to study science. He received his Bachelor’s of Science from Acadia University and later continued his education at the Technical University of Nova Scotia. Despite his parents’ desire for their son to avoid suffering the perils of farming and in the midst of completing his Master’s in Engineering, Alan Stewart made his major career decision in his mid-twenties: he wanted to become a farmer – and not just any farmer. He wanted to become an organic farmer. Just as he renounced the engineer-structured lifestyle in exchange for the independence of farming, Alan Stewart further forsook the conventional agricultural structures for those of organic farming.
When getting started, Alan Stewart used his science background to understand soil fertility, but only after struggling for a long time to understand why it was important in the first place: “when I started with farming, the ground was just dirt – and that’s part of what convinced me that organics was a challenge I wanted to take – the ground was a living entity: soil.”
Organics presented a challenge to Stewart’s academic mind, “I didn’t have a fear of being different,” he says, “in fact, I enjoyed the challenge of going beyond my experience.” He also enjoyed the challenge of turning his parent’s stagnant farm into a viable establishment – one that is in tune with natural systems and what he calls “a minimalist approach to growth.” His current approach is based strongly on observation – to carefully understand what action is needed and when – “one recognizes the hand one has to play in the production of food,” says Alan Stewart, “but you don’t overdo it.” |
