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Family Farm Staying on Top of Organic Demand

The Dykerman family in Brookfield, Prince Edward Island, is passionate about farming, high service standards and quality produce. For more than three decades, the family operation has been growing and processing conventional vegetables for sale to wholesale markets in Atlantic Canada.  As these wholesalers started to request more and more organic vegetables, Matthew Dykerman saw an opportunity to become a bigger player in that market.

Matthew started to farm organically in 2009 under the business name Red Soil Organics Inc. (RSO). Starting out small, RSO has grown into the largest organic vegetable farm in Atlantic Canada, growing over 50 acres of mixed vegetables including carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale and rutabaga.

The Honourable Wayne Easter, Member of Parliament for Malpeque, on behalf of the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), and on behalf of the Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, today joined the Honourable Alan McIsaac, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, to announce government support for RSO to purchase innovative sorting and packaging equipment to increase operational efficiencies. ACOA, through its Business Development Program, is providing a repayable contribution of $500,000 to the company for the new equipment. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the PEI Department of Agriculture and Fisheries are also providing $75,000 through the Canada-PEI Growing Forward 2 Agreement to assist Red Soil Organics with new technology and environmental sustainability, including an optical  carrot sorter, a grader and improvements to waste water management. 

Source: AAFC


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