Name

Keisha Rose Topic

Occupation

Potato Farmer, R.A Rose and Sons Ltd, Rose’s Organics, East Point Potato

Tell us about yourself!

I work for my family potato farm - R.A Rose & Sons. I work with my dad, Boyd and my uncle Miles. I’m the sixth generation in my family to farm. We also have a packing facility that my family, as well as my cousins on my mother's side, purchased in 2009. My father manages the packing facility now and my uncle manages the home farm and I kind of float between both places. During planting, growing and harvest season, I'm at the farm. And during packing season I’m at the packing facility - East Point Potatoes. I've been at the farm full time since 2015.

Did you always know you wanted to work on the family farm?

No, I didn't really consider farming, honestly, when I left high school. I went to UPEI and got a business degree. Everyone always asked if I went to NSAC, but I never really considered that. I had grown up around farming but it really wasn’t presented as a career option to me. My Dad in particular, encouraged me to branch out and figure out what I wanted to do as opposed to just assuming I would leave high school and join the farm right away. I think a lot of farming families are similar in that way. They know farming is hard and if you don’t have a passion for it, you’re not going to make it.

What do you grow at the farm?

Now-a-days, pretty much just potatoes. We used to do a lot of grains in our rotations - wheat, barley, oats, soybeans, but, in the last seven to ten years, we started to go more towards cover crops for two years between our potato rotation, so we'll plant a multi species cover crop that builds up soil health between our potato years, and that also helps with yield on our potato years. All of our potatoes are grown for the retail market. That's what we do at East Point Potato. We pack all of our farm's potatoes, all of my cousin's farm's potatoes, and then we pack for 40 different growers on PEI as well. These potatoes go to retailers like Walmart and restaurants like Five Guys Burger & Fries.

Can you speak to our role with the Federation of Agriculture?

I got involved with the Federation of Agriculture in 2017. I started as a county director on the board and kind of worked my way up and now I'm the president of the board. The Federation is the largest farm organization on PEI, and it brings all of those voices (dairy, beef, potatoes, etc) together to focus on their common goals. My role is really to represent our members and the organization at different levels of government.

How has female representation in the farming industry evolved?

I think there definitely has been some barriers removed. I definitely am seeing more females involved, but also more highlighting of the women that have been involved all along but maybe weren’t seen as contributing to the farm. For example, the farmer's wife who does all the books and manages all the accounts, and picks up parts. She's also farming. She's a key piece. You couldn't do that without her. If she was removed from the business then there would be an issue. So I feel like people, or in my world anyways, are more willing to recognize that.

Do you see other young farmers coming up?

There definitely are some really great young people in the industry as a whole. I do worry about the boomers leaving the workforce. I don't think we're going to keep up with them leaving. Things can be done a lot differently and more efficiently these days compared to years ago but it still seems like there's so many jobs that are going to need to be filled. There definitely needs to be more encouragement and awareness of the fact that there are jobs in this sector.

What is a big misconception when it comes to farming?

There is no one role that a farmer does or doesn’t do. A farmer has a very diverse job description in my mind. And it always has been but it hasn’t always been thought of as that. From hiring, to business development, to shipping and logistics, to learning new technology and practices….Some days, it is exhausting, but other days it's kind of fun and challenging. I definitely wouldn’t have it any other way.

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