A fifth generation farmer and his wife (who grew up in Oliver) have been named BC’s Outstanding Young Farmers for 2013.
Thirty-year-old Troy Harker and his wife, Sara, also 30 (of Cawston) received their award from BC Lieutenant Governor Judy Guichon and Canadian OYF president Derek Janzen in front of over 400 people at the annual BC Agriculture Gala in Abbotsford recently. It was a fitting presentation as Guichon is past president of the BC Cattlemen’s Association while Janzen is a poultry producer and past BC Outstanding Young Farmer.
The Harkers run a family farm which also includes Troy’s parents and sister. Based on a diverse 30-acre organic vegetable farm and orchard founded by Troy’s great-great grandfather, William James Manery, in the 1880s, the farm’s 48 full-time and seasonal workers also operate a fruit winery, on-farm retail store, restaurant program and wholesale distribution service under the banners: Harker Organics, Rustic Roots Winery, Farm to Fork Delivery and Harvest Moon Growers.
When Troy and Sara joined the operation in 2006, then comprising only an organic farm, retail market and small organic packing and distribution service, they “saw the need for diversification.”
They responded by adding the restaurant delivery program, which now serves 25 restaurants in the Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys. Sara is also the winemaker for Rustic Roots, a new fruit winery which has given the Harkers and their fellow organic growers a rewarding outlet for their cull fruit. They are slowly converting their orchard to high-density plantings and now have two acres of Honeycrisp apple trees in a two-foot by 10-foot super-spindle production system. Their wholesale packing business has also expanded and now distributes organic fruit and vegetables from 25 organic growers with a total of 550 acres of production.
“On behalf of myself, Troy and the entire team at Harker’s Organics and Rustic Roots Winery, we are very excited and honoured to have received this award. We are elated to be representing our province and competing at the national competition in the fall,” Sara said. “It is our goal to showcase our region and our passion for sustainable, organic, family farming. We want to show the rest of the country how our region has created a sustainable, secure food system, and how that can be modelled in other areas.”
Sara’s mother is Monica Nemes, owner of Innervisions. Her grandmother is Helen Nemes who owned a farm in Oliver and worked at the Oliver Packing House.
The 2013 BC Outstanding Young Farmer award is one of a long list of awards the Harkers have received in recent years. In 2011, the BC Institute of Agrologists named them the “Farming Family of the Year,” and the Canadian Wine Awards honoured them for the “Best Fruit Wine” in Canada. Harker Organics has also been named one of BC’s top five agrotourism destinations and Eat Magazine’s “Best Okanagan Farm.”
The Harkers will represent BC at the national OYF competition in Saskatchewan in November.
