An Innovative Approach to Agriculture
The One Earth Farms model is designed to manage within both the weather and commodity price cycles while building key strategic partnerships with both the First Nations and key businesses within the value chain.
An Innovative Approach to Agriculture
Through the selective positioning of OEF farming sites across the full variety of historical weather patterns of Western Canada, the likelihood of having an excess or lack of moisture or an excess or lack of heat units in all locations in the same year is significantly mitigated. This widely dispersed model significantly enhances the potential for a stable volume of production, in aggregate, year in and year out.
OEF is in the process of establishing a series of strategically located, highly sophisticated grain-handling facilities, concurrent with the concentration of farming/ranching activities. In addition to the traditional storage of grains, feed and inputs, the design of these sites as state-of-the-art grain handling facilities will provide a number of key advantages, including an earlier start to harvesting, which is another weather-risk mitigation factor. These facilities will also provide an opportunity to assemble market-ready raw commodities in significant quantities, which will enhance market timing to align with pricing signals vs. production cycles—another opportunity to step back from the role of traditional price taker.
OEF is currently establishing key downstream relationships with processors of both grains and livestock. These relationships are designed to provide processors with the component parts they require to produce their end products, with the ability to retain by-products either for other markets or for incorporation into other OEF divisions for both direct and indirect consumption. This procedure provides OEF with the opportunity to take another step back from traditional pricing into volatile commodity markets and to position their sales into a longer-term pricing arrangement with downstream consumers. The end result of this exercise is intended to transform farming from a volatile, unpredictable, commodity-based business into a predictable, margin-based business.
