With COVID-19 more people in Dawson are thinking about food scarcity. Farm manager Derrick Hastings estimates that 90 per cent of the town’s food is trucked in from the south. If the food supply got cut off, he says, “it wouldn’t even take a week in the Yukon, and we’d be in shortages.” This year, people are “very gung-ho” for growing their own food, in community gardens and their own backyards. People are buying chicks, keen to have their own egg supply. The farm sells feed, straw and other inputs for agriculture at cost. 

“There’s definitely way more demand this year than there has been in the past.” 

The farm operates to recover costs, not turn a profit. While some local farmers are concerned about competition from a not-for-profit farm, Hastings says the TH Farm is helping future farmers gain skills and get established in the community. 

“It’s very much based on principles of equality and general compassion, as opposed to profitability,” says Hastings. Sales recover about a sixth of the farm’s costs; he’s hoping to push that up to a quarter this year, and the farm’s 10-year business plan aims to reach 50 per cent cost recovery. The farm recently won a $500-million Arctic Inspiration Prize, matched by the federal government, to build a cold-climate greenhouse that will extend the growing season nearly year round.

In response to COVID-19, the farm is ramping up production, but farmers in remote communities can only grow so much on short notice. Hastings says it’s important to invest in local producers before a crisis hits. 

“Locally, people are starting to wake up to the fact that we need to own the means of distribution, to start investing in local production.