The B.C. Peace Country grower reflects on rising costs, lost research capacity and the people who keep local farm institutions alive.
Ask Gordon Hill what he is proudest of after more than four decades growing pedigreed seed near Taylor, B.C., and he doesn’t talk about awards, varieties or acres. His answer is simpler.
“We’re still here. We’re still doing it.”
At 78, he has earned the right to say that.
His family’s connection to the land stretches back to 1933, when his father arrived in British Columbia from the Prairies during the drought years. His father began farming at just 15. Gordon eventually joined him, and he and wife Colleen took over the farm. Today, Gordon’s son Blair represents the next generation.
“My son’s been farming with me for over 20 years now,” Hill says. “We’ve basically turned a lot of it over to him.”
That makes Hill Farms more than a seed business. Its history mirrors much of the agricultural history of B.C.’s Peace Country — farmers building businesses a long way from Canada’s major agricultural centres and learning that, when something important disappears, sometimes the only option is to build it themselves.
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