MERRICKVILLE — They may not have sold as quickly as Ottawa Senators playoff tickets but shares in New Terra Farm still went fast as owner Scott Kelland started receiving phone calls only hours after he sent out flyers. Beginning its second year, Kelland’s market garden business has grown from 10 clients to an amazing 46, which was his forecasted limit. Kelland went to the home of every client to find out what vegetables and meat they wanted. He delivers produce to homes twice a week.

The business approach is known as a Community Supported Agriculture and they are poppiong up across Ontario. There are than 1,000 in North America. A CSA is a group of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the food produced is shared among the members. The consumers and grower share the risks and benefits of food production. The concepts of CSA’s origninate back to the Japanese who called the process "Teikei" or "putting the farmers’ face on the food." The concept travelled to Europe and eventually North America where it earned its current name in 1985 at a farm in Massachusetts.

In early 2006, Kelland, a strategic planning and performance management consultant, and his family decided they wanted to grow and sell products directly to consumers. "We planned things in February 2006. We came up with a marketing plan and created our first CSA market garden," says Kelland. This experiment worked out better than Kelland and his family anticipated as they received the Premier’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence and a $5,000 payday that came with it.

After his initial success, Kelland began to prepare for 2007. "We learnt a lot from 2006. We created more efficient operating methods such as; intensive planting and integrating computer technology to organize crop schedules and to create a website which our members use to see progress being made with crops."

Kelland says his techniques are simple. He makes use of drip irrigation, raises the beds, which the seeds are planted in, rotates the crops and plants decoy crops of Mizuna, an Asian green vegetable, to lure bugs away from the vegetables he shares with the members and most importantly he covers all of his crops to prevent bugs from getting at them.

The main costs that the farm experiences is labour. Kelland and his family work the farm but he still hires about three people to help during the spring and summer months. The benefit for Kelland is that the clients pay him $850 at the beginning of the season. This allows him to factor in the costs of labor, seeds and any additional expenses.

Although Kelland plans to earn approximately $45,000 in sales this year the project is still only part-time. He still works part-time as a consultant. He believes that with increasing demand he will double sales next year and become full-time in only a couple of years. His goal is to reach $250,000 in sales in six years. There is already a waiting list of clients, but he says he will first have to expand the farm.. He has 52 acres, the garden itself is on 3 acres, and he uses 15 acres for his animals. "I have received great response to my products and I attribute that to people wanting to support the local economy and becoming more food conscience." With the expansion Kelland plans to use cross promotion with local restaurants. He will supply them with his products and hopes they advertise on his website.

The most important aspect of a CSA is marketing. You need to know how to sell your product. Kellands strategy was to cover the town in flyers. The idea to use flyers came when he helped his daughter start her own home cleaning business. They chose flyers because they are cost efficient, lots of information can be written on them and you can target areas that you feel will have the highest response rate. "We sent out the flyers at 8 a.m. and started getting phone calls at 4 p.m." he explains. After Kelland visited each family, he decided what he would plant. His product list includes 35 types of vegetables, as well as pork, eggs and chickens, beef and lamb. "The customer base is so important I want people to know that they eat the same products that I eat. If it is not good enough for me I won’t sell it to them."

Kelland stresses one-on-one marketing. He does not like to compare himself to a corporation because he feels it is important to come across as a person to build trust with clients. Kelland delivers the baskets to his clients twice a week beginning in June. This will last until late October but that is subject to change depending on the crops. "It is hard work but anyone can do this," Kelland says. "Growing is one thing, knowing how to sell your product is the challenge."