The Young Turnip Farmer Who Could
Ashley Wood grew up farming with his mother’s family – the Haydens. He worked with cattle, grain and potatoes, all the while, taking in the positive thoughts of his grandfather and his uncles. In his late 20s, he decided to set up his own turnip business. He was motivated, and he knew just where he would ship the fresh produce. He pursued Sobeys and has had them as a major client ever since.
“They are our bread and butter,” admitted Wood. “If it wasn’t for them, I don’t think we could survive. They buy from us 52 weeks a year.
When asked why he started with turnips, Wood said it was an easy crop to grow and a good way to start farming with a little 35hp Massey tractor. Today he has 18 clients besides Sobeys – mostly off Island. He’s still amazed to see tractor-trailers pull in destined for Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Boston.
“We don’t eat them every day so I wonder where all these turnips go and how all these crops are consumed
– especially at this time of year when a lot of people aren’t cooking,” said Wood.
Besides turnips, he rotates the fields with soybeans, wheat, and milling wheat at times; and sells these crops to Smith Brokerage in Halifax, Cardigan Feed Services in PEI and PEI Grain Elevators near Pooles Corner.
“I think it’s a great way of life,” he said, “but there are challenges, especially when the sales aren’t high enough and the expenses are too high.”
Three years ago, the owner of Ashley H. Wood Inc. took an old potato digger and made it into a turnip harvester. Basically it takes just two rows at a time so he’s able to go to the field himself and harvest an acre in three to four hours. And instead of having 15 people working in the field, he can take the product to his warehouse, put it on a conveyer belt and manufacture the product in a controlled and comfortable environment. There are four full-time and three part-time employees in the company.
While there’s been an increase in productivity and labour costs are down, Wood said it hasn’t necessarily converted into profit. Last year turnips were $.60 cents a pound and this year the price is down to $.30 a pound. Wood would like to see the supply and demand tables turn.
One thing he has done about it is check with buyers about buying organic turnips. They’ve told him there isn’t enough demand, but he’s still interested in the idea. He puts in 70 to 80 hours a week, and he grows anywhere from 80 to 100 acres of turnips per year for the fresh market. That’s about 800 bags per acre with 24 turnips in a bag, so roughly 19,000 turnips per acre.
With his potato background, he’s pretty good at scouting for bugs and eggs; and while he has to spray twice a season to keep the worms away, he still tries to avoid it as much as possible because he has his own young family to consider.
“I also like the idea of making a living while living off a lot less acres and perhaps getting paid a little more for your product,” said the thirty-four-year old. “Then you don’t have to do this humongus volume to try and make profits.”
Wood hauls Sobeys’ turnips to a big warehouse in Debert, Nova Scotia, 20 km west of the town of Truro. Usually he loads the truck, catches the last boat over, arrives in Debert at 10:30 p.m., is awakened at 4:30 a.m. or 5 a.m. to unload and go through quality control, and then catches the first boat coming back to the Island.
The busiest time of the year for him is October when he’s trying to remove the product from the fields for storage, while continuing to keep the market supplied. The largest market demand is during holidays though it’s fairly steady throughout the year.
Wood starts planting in Bellevue, PEI where the soil is sandier and drier, to catch the early market. This year he started to plant April 3rd and ended mid-June. He tries to have sections of turnips ready, based on sales from the last year or two. In the fall he takes three to four weeks to harvest the turnips before he has to get them into tote boxes for winter storage.
Wood often teases his grandfather, “Billy,” about the Hayden Empire and how easy it was to build when expenses were much lower, but he does so with great respect. He knows that money management is a serious matter and he is hoping the governments and the Federation of Agriculture will help bring back those “hay days” that his grandfather enjoyed. Meanwhile, he has some parting advice for fellow farmers.
“If you can just stay focused on what you’re doing and put your head down and work hard at it and not worry about what anybody else is doing beside you or around you; and if you can know there are going to be a lot more downs than ups, but that it’s rewarding when you do get those ups because they give you the strength to carry on through the bad times, then you’ll do alright.”
