Across the Creek and Over the Rainbow

When Bruce Miller says “Across the Creek” he is referring to across Ryan Creek where he would wander the large wooded area for big adventures as a boy. More recently, he bought that piece of land and his big adventure is farming about 200 of his family’s 500 acres and doing it completely organically. There are about 50 acres growing organic cabbage, rutabagas, table potatoes and seed potatoes for the wholesale market and the rest is growing market vegetables for market and a CSA harvest box program, and premixed salads for local restaurants in the Whistler area.

Miller is a third generation farmer and, being the only son, basically inherited the family farming business. He is fond of the saying, “the first generation clears the land, the second plants the crops and the third has to figure out how to sell them. The third generation is the marketing generation,” which sums up where his responsibilities lie. His sense is that he doesn’t have to clear the land or establish the crops but, to keep the farm viable, he has to develop new ways of doing business and new markets for his crops. He remembers how his father liked farming and particularly how he enjoyed nature and the walks they would go on through the big woodlands across the creek. He jokes that his early childhood contact with nature got “engrained in his DNA.” He adds, “I’m not really an environmentalist but I have a huge interest in the land. We very carefully consider the impact [on the land] of what we do on the farm.”

While he was growing up on the farm, his family produced mainly seed potatoes and beef cattle probably back to the 1950s. Miller reflects that, back then, people could make a decent living growing seed potatoes for the wholesale market. His own experience is that he did not feel particularly secure chasing diminishing margins on crops, facing massive competition from industrial farming and, of course, the realities of the nature. The Miller family began to grow small amounts of various vegetables to see if they could diversify both their products and their markets in order to provide some stability for their business and their farm. “Part of the reason we looked for diversification for the farm was the risk—the risk of flood and the risks of growing a commodity where you have no control over the price. It was forcing us to grow more and more acres of potatoes to become economically viable. That was not a situation where we could win.”

Seven years ago, Miller started planting small plots of organic vegetables in his land “across the creek” while continuing to grow conventional seed potatoes in the established plots. One of the things he learned very early was that, if you’re going to grow new crops, you’re going to have to do some marketing. He recalls going to the farmers’ markets with a truck load of produce and coming home a little embarrassed with $200 in his pocket—small change considering that he could get $6,000 for a truckload of seed potatoes. Despite the marginal financial return the trip to town was invaluable for the marketing research. “We had to go out to farmers markets,” he recalls. “It was interesting, the little things that you learn from customers, personal things, sort of ‘I like this, I don’t like that.’ It’s instant feedback. It’s a great learning tool, because otherwise you’re judging by your own experience. If you’re not buying the food it doesn’t matter what your experience is. It’s the people who are paying for it that make the judgment call. So, we’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t from going to markets.”

The decision to move to organic farming was not an easy one. The Millers had a fairly stable business and good contracts for their conventional crops. Gradually, as they had more successes with limited amounts of organic produce for newly developed markets, they moved more towards operating more of their farm organically. “We inched our way into it [and] decided this was what we really wanted to do and how would we do it. It took a lot of thought. We were putting our farm at risk by opening a whole new book or rewriting the book basically. So we said ‘let’s do it’ based on some of our test successes.”

More importantly, every change they considered required a fairly large learning curve. Knowledge of growing seed potatoes does not equate to knowledge about growing market vegetables or salad greens—it’s never as simple as merely putting different seeds in the ground. “Going from growing five varieties of seed potatoes to say forty varieties of vegetables and on a fairly large scale was a huge learning curve,” Miller says. “Each one has to be experienced. You can read as much as you want, but you have to go through those few years of experience.” There is both art and science in taking small test plots of organic vegetables into full scale production. Everything from harvesting, washing, packaging, equipment and handling methods need to be considered, developed and refined. While he had successes he is quick to point out that the transition to organic production was difficult. “With trying to do twenty things at once, learning advertising and marketing, how to grow forty vegetables, what a CSA is and how it works, the packaging, how to cold store produce in winter—it’s been a huge learning curve.”

Part of Miller’s problem was that, to a certain extent, his experience in conventional farming led him to believe that organic farming, while an attractive idea in theory, was not economically viable. “Sustainably is good for the land, but can you make your payments?”, he ponders. “All my conventional knowledge and schooling led me to believe it wasn’t possible economically. But we wanted to try it for at least 5 percent [of our business] as a learning experiment.”

Across the Creek Organics has been a reasonably successful experiment. Miller thinks he needs another three or four years before he would consider it stable though he acknowledges the need to innovate to keep up with his clients and markets—a process that he feels is never finished.

“The future of small farms is a difficult one,” he says, “because you can’t compete on pricing. You have to compete on quality and as soon as someone can match your quality and sell $10 [cheaper] you’re out of luck.” This he thinks will be a constant challenge but he feels he has a lot of interest and inspiration. He adds, “Growing organically is exciting because it’s natural— like being out in the forest. It’s bringing the wild out of the forest [to the farm] and that makes it so interesting.” It certainly is a big adventure.

Michael Marrapese
Fall 2004

Across the Creek Organics has a website at
www.acrossthecreekorganics.com