Human Resources
Plan B operates as a business partnership with Venturelli, his wife and his brother running the farm. His parents were important resources in providing a lot of the start up capital to build the farm 13 years ago. These family-business relationships have been fundamental in operating the farm successfully. In addition to the stable dedication of the Venturelli family, Plan B relies on the labor of 1.5 to 2 full time staff positions, as well as 5-6 seasonal laborers made up of waged workers, volunteers and interns. Interns sometimes receive different compensation depending on the program within which they intern at the farm. Some are unpaid interns, sometimes second year interns receive a salary, and student interns from the local high school program require minimum wage.
Venturelli admits that the interns can at times be considered “underpaid to an extent” but at the same time the interns gain valuable education through their placement at the farm and are sometimes interning to fulfill the requirements of a certification program. The interns are also provided room and board on the farm during the working season. These relationships highlight the complexity of labor questions on a farm: while interns are not the highest paid workers in the economy and often work long hours, labor costs (such as minimum wage) continue to rise but vegetable farmers are unable to charge more for their produce to recoup these costs. Venturelli’s strategy to address this question has been to try to “build [full time] positions as the business grows and make those stable conditions…to have a stable workforce” made up of fewer interns and more full time workers.
Physical Resources
Plan B has a warehouse on premises as well as two houses, in addition to a van and a truck for deliveries. A quarter of the warehouse space is used for packing CSA boxes, and the rest is used for storage, both of Plan B’s produce and some of the produce purchased from small producers. Warehouse space is a critical resource in this supply chain. It allows Plan B to purchase crops from small producers who lack warehouse space, and store them until they can be used in the CSA boxes. This benefits the small producers as Plan B can often offer them a better price than major wholesalers (who might be able to purchase a comparable quantity). Pfennings’s extensive warehouse space is a resource that benefits both small producers and Plan B, who purchases from Pfennings and sells surplus from their farm back to Pfennings when they have it. As the Venturellis and many of the seasonal workers live on the premises, two houses is also an important physical resource.
Natural Resources
Plan B had an analysis done of their farm’s natural resources to evaluate which crops they could grow most efficiently given their climate, soil and water resources. Their strengths include having “some labor, good water, decent soil” says Venturelli . In addition, they practice an agro-ecological farming method that builds natural fertility cycles in their soil. They have used the results of this assessment to focus on growing what thrives given the resources they have available (including annual vegetables, garlic, onions, cooking greens and carrots), which is better for the soil, and more efficient. Their partnerships with other small farmers in the area and Pfennings allow them to fill in the gaps of what they do not grow themselves for the CSA. In this system, producers grow what is most efficient for them to grow, and through regional trade achieve the sufficient variety to attract and hold enough CSA customers to be profitable.
Financial Resources
In 1997 when Alvaro & Melanie decided they wanted to start an organic farm but had no way to start that, they created a summer youth project called “Plan B Organic Farms” they received a 150,000 HRDC grant from the Canadian government through a Youth Entrepreneurship program for that project that paid themselves and 6 other “youth” for the season to learn how to run a small csa farm. They hired a mentor farmer, each received a $200 stipend/week, and paid for a business training course with these funds. Venturelli’s parents also contributed funding for the farm. The first season, Plan B sold 75 shares and used those funds to purchase a walking rototiller, seeds, row covers, and the hand tools needed
Aside from the initial funding for start up costs, Plan B has not received any additional funding. The operation is completely financially self-sustaining. The operation, “became financially viable at around 500 to 600 shares”, explains Venturelli, and they have been able to expand to 700 to 1000 shares at present through positive press and word of mouth. Customers purchase shares at the beginning of the season, and they guarantee the farm a market and a set price for their product. In addition, the share system allows Plan B to know in advance exactly how much produce they will need, allowing them to “grow only what we need” and reduce losses, explains Venturelli. The success of the CSA has been the key to Plan B’s sustainability.
Community Resources
Plan B “partner[s] with loosely about probably twenty-two growers, [and] also Pfennings…to be that culturally appropriate box”, says Venturelli. When the CSA first started, Plan B actually lost customers because as Venturelli explains, “people have habits which are everybody goes to the store…[and we] couldn’t provide people with culturally appropriate [variety]” that they had come to expect from the experience of shopping at supermarkets. In order to achieve variety in their product that would allow them to maintain enough customers to be profitable, Plan B “started to work with other farmers in southern Ontario to create our own food system”, Venturelli explains.
To supplement their own produce in the CSA boxes, Plan B buys directly from small producers specializing in products that Plan B can’t grow as efficiently, as well as purchasing from Pfennings, which sells their own produce, more of the produce of small farmers in Southern Ontario (as they have a greater capacity to store it) as well as some imported organic produce. These community business partnerships are mutually beneficial relationships: Plan B can often provide small farmers with a better price than what a wholesaler is willing to offer, and the box variety achieved by so many suppliers keeps Plan B in business.
Good press from the CSA customers and word of mouth in the community have helped Plan B expand its customer base and exceed the number of shares needed to break even. Plan B used to rely heavily on CSA customers outside of Hamilton (in Toronto for example) for income, but positive press from customers within the Hamilton community has recently allowed them to secure the support of more customers in their own community.
Policy and Program Resources
Venturelli has found that there is not a lot of funding for interns. As mentioned earlier, Plan B also received some of its initial funding through the Youth Entrepreneurship program, which they used to train under an organic farmer and grow their first season of shares. Golba expressed a need for policy and program resources that specifically addressed the needs of small-scale fresh fruit and vegetable producers:
I think there is a need for organization and funding of fresh vegetable/fruit producers, especially small scale. What we need is access to funds precisely for capital purchases to develop the very costly infrastructure needed on farms that handle fresh produce. Small vegetable farms need proper cold storage facility, refrigerated delivery vehicles, and also develop proper kitchen space on farm for value added production. These 3 key things, if small farms could have help with access to funding to develop these [they] would be doing much better and we would see more of them survive in this market.