Newfoundland & Labrador – Andy Larner

Farming in Newfoundland & Labrador has never been easy. The Newfoundland & Labrador Heritage website understates it the best: “Newfoundland and Labrador's climate and soil have not been conducive to agriculture.” For anyone who has visited, it seems at times that there is more “rock” than “land” in Newfoundland, which is why most people know it simply as “the Rock”.

The Rock is home to one of Canada’s smallest provincial chicken industries, yet it is extremely well integrated and very dynamic. Nearly self-sufficient, the province has gradually expanded both its production and processing facilities and has started looking outside the province for new customers. Opportunities for further processed products may lead to further developments.

Andy Larner and his wife Marilyn have raised two kids (Mitchel 21, Amanda, 19) on their chicken farm and look forward to many more years of being their own bosses.

“Supply management has given us the security to create and support a sustainable industry,” said Andy. “There’s also an awful lot of opportunity for growth. As Canada’s industry grows, we’ll continue to grow with it.”

“My dad built the business in 1960s. We actually had layers first then switched into broilers in the early ‘70s. I took over the farm in the mid-80s.”

The Larners’ farm is in Whitbourne, about 80 km west of St. John’s. They live right near the hatchery that provides their chicks and have found that to be beneficial.

“We get them [the chicks] just hours after they’ve been hatched,” said Andy. “Also, being so close to the [processing] plant helps too because we’re only about an hour away and transport isn’t difficult.”

The Larner Farm, Heatherway Farms, has two 3-storey barns and is geared primarily toward chicken production but Andy also cultivates about 30 acres of hay and runs a small sod business on the last 5 acres. That might explain how he can “take a nine iron” to work as he walks the 300 yards to barn.

Andy is quite involved politically in the provincial agriculture industry. He is a director on the provincial chicken board as well as on the Newfoundland Federation of Agriculture and the Agri-Adapt Council Inc. (AACI is a funding organization made up of 8 members representing the farming and processing communities with two non-voting representatives from the provincial and federal governments). His “extra-curricular” activities provide him with extra opportunities to promote chicken and agriculture.

“We used to have ‘Chick Days’, where we’d bring a bunch to the school. There’s a public school right near me but we’ve stopped because of biosecurity concerns. We also used to get people out to farm but we had to stop that. It’s unfortunate because more and more people want to know where their food comes from.”

“In Newfoundland, Downhome Magazine, with the support of the Federation of Agriculture has come up with the ’50 Mile Diet’ as a way to promote local products to the consumer. You can find most things within 50 miles of St. John’s.”

He has also taken an interest in international trade activities, especially as the current uncertainty over the WTO agriculture negotiations is one of the few things he dislikes about the chicken industry.

“We’ve all got to follow them [the agriculture negotiations],” he said. “We don’t know yet what’s going to come out in the wash. It’s all up in the air. The key is to keep informed and be patient. Nothing is going to change overnight but we used to have much more control than we do now.”

Change may be coming but the Larners aren’t going to sit around and wait for it to happen to them. They continue to work on the farm and have added computerized remote monitors to one barn that control the weigh scales as well as the heating and vent systems. They are also planning to add the same systems to the other barn in the near future.

“We’re going to keep going,” said Andy. “We’ve got a job to do for the consumers. Consumers want to be confident in the product and we want to make sure that happens. It’s nice to be part of system that has programs like OFFSAP [On-Farm Food Safety Assurance Program] which provides us with the tools to help protect our industry.”

“After all, without us everyone would have to raise their own chickens.”