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Live! Thursday, April 3 at 1 p.m. Eastern

Building a Resilient Farm Business

Building a resilient farm business means having the right strategies and tools to manage risk and adapt to changing conditions. Join us for an engaging webinar featuring Heather Watson of Farm Management Canada, Stephanie Maynard & Phil Quinn of Quinn Farms, and Alex Pulwicki of Young Agrarians as they will discuss practical strategies, real-world examples, and valuable resources available to help farmers strengthen their operations and secure long-term success.

The recording for this webinar is now available. Visit Agriwebinar.com to access the recording.

Presented by:

Stephanie Maynard & Phil Quinn
Owners
Quinn Farms

Quinn Farm was started in 1982 by Phil’s parents. They purchased land that had not been farmed in 30 years and cleared the land with the intention of creating an agritourism farm. They started with strawberries and planted apple trees and Christmas trees. Today the farm grows fruits and vegetables on 250 acres with everything produced being sold on site through u-pick, in the farm shop as well as being processed into value added goods such as preserves, frozen meals and baked goods.

Stephanie Maynard is co-owner of Quinn Farm with her husband Phil. Stephanie studied Leisure and Recreation in University with a focus on business management. In the first part of her career she was Executive Director for the Quebec 4-H and worked in consulting in rural development and communications with her father Hugh Maynard. She joined the farm business in 2010 and now oversees finances, retail, food processing & marketing. She volunteers as a leader for her kids local 4-H club and is Vice-President of the county fair.

The farm receives around 100,000 guests annually for u-pick and has a large farm shop that is mostly grocery items which sees several hundred regular shoppers weekly. The farm is open from March to December and offers a few educational days throughout the year: sheep shearing, maple taffy experience and honey harvest. The farm has greatly reduced the number of field trips it does in the past few years to focus on expanding the farm shop.

Phil Quinn grew up on the farm, working from a young age doing things like planting corn and cultivating strawberries. He attend MacDonald college in the Farm Management Technology program and then took a break from farming to work in construction and snow removal for several years before returning to get established on the farm. Phil now manages all of the field production with an assistant manager and 10 migrant workers. He also coordinates all u-pick activities and logistics of customer flow.

Alex Pulwicki
Young Agrarians

Alex loves nothing more than bringing together people to celebrate local food and farms! As the Alberta & E-Learning Manager for Young Agrarians she gets to meet amazing new and aspiring farmers and help them to connect with the resources and support needed to start farming. She enjoys making online spaces a place to build connections with people near and far. Alex has worked and volunteered at a number of farms across Alberta and is passionate about local dairy and cheesemaking. You can reach Alex at [email protected].

Hosted by:

Heather Watson
Executive Director
Farm Management Canada

Heather leads the team as Executive Director of Farm Management Canada and is the Canadian representative to the International Farm Management Association. In 2022, Heather was recognized as one of Canada’s Influential Women in Canadian Agriculture.