BEST OF// Dan Brisebois of Tourne-Sol Farm

In case you missed it, we’re officially dedicating this week on the blog to SEEDS! Lest you think it’s arbitrary, I’d bet good money you JUST got your first round of seed catalogs in the mail. One the last episode of the podcast, we had Dan Brisebois of Tourne-Sol Farm in Canada on to talk about the ecologic and economic aspects of saving seed on a small farm. Most of the seed we buy—if not all of it—have not been adapted to our bio-regions or selected for our growing conditions and there could be a wealth of genetic potential just waiting to be unlocked. But, we’ll get into the ‘why’ and ‘what for’ later, here is a BEST OF the prolific Dan Brisebois.

At Permaculture Voices

Integrating commercial seed production with the market garden featuring Daniel Brisebois. Growing seeds can be a profitable addition to your market garden. There is a market to sell local organic seeds to small seed companies. Or you can start your own retail seed company.

“Integrating commercial seed production with the market garden, featuring Daniel Brisebois. Growing seeds can be a profitable addition to your market garden. There is a market to sell local organic seeds to small seed companies. Or you can start your own retail seed company. Both of these sales strategies can be profitable but they do have very different costs.”

A FREE Seed Saving 4-part Mini course

Dan Brisebois is giving a FREE 4-part mini course to turn market gardeners in SEED savers! Sign up for the course: http://bit.ly/seedminicourse

Dan not only co-operates Tourne-Sol Farm, he has a seed-saving blog, Going to Seed, and is a spreadsheet wizard. You can get great nuts-and-bolts knowledge of how to build your own farm-based spreadsheets at The Farmer Spreadsheet Academy. While we’re talking spreadsheets, he co-authored a book, Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers, which may be the best $25 I’ve spent in my 8 year farm vocation and I highly recommend it to every market farmer, especially beginning farmers and folks growing for CSA.

On the thriving farmer podcast

Listen to the full episode here: http://thrivingfarmerpodcast.libsyn.com/ep-2-developing-a-holistic-farm-with-dan-brisebois-of-tourne-sol-co-operative-farm Daniel Brisebois is a founding member of the Tourne-Sol Cooperative farm which grows vegetables and seeds outside of Montreal, Quebec. In this interview, Dan shares how his role on the farm has evolved as the farm has grown, how the cooperative management model works, and how farms need to focus on running their numbers which can easily be done with spreadsheets.

“In this interview, Dan shares how his role on the farm has evolved as the farm has grown, how the cooperative management model works, and how farms need to focus on running their numbers which can easily be done with spreadsheets. In This Episode: The 3 different types of farm stress and how to manage them Why working on other farms as you start is so key for a great education Dan’s physical planning process that sets him up for success every day Why even in the crazy busiest times it's so important to step back, spend time with friends, family and get perspective. How Tourne Sol consistently finds excellent workers to help their farm grow.” M. Kilpatrick

Kilpatrick has several videos of Dan posted on his YouTube channel, In The Field. Not only should you be subscribed to the Thriving Farmer Podcast, there are a ton of great, super-informative, short/sweet farm videos there.

On the farmer to farmer podcast

Dan Brisebois was a founding member of Tourne-Sol Cooperative Farm, begun in 2004. Located just outside of Montreal, Quebec, Tourne-Sol is an employee-owned cooperative with five members, engaged in about seven acres of vegetable and vegetable seed production.

We’d be remiss to not include any relevant episode of Farmer to Farmer. It’s where I first learned of Dan and Tourne-Sol, as well as what a functional small-farm cooperative looks like. I’ll start a tractor to that, and all of the other great paths this podcast sent me down.

“Dan provides an eye-opening discussion of his experience as part of a cooperative farming venture, including their use of Holistic Management to guide decision-making with regards to both profitability and quality of life. We dig into some of the logistical details of how the Tourne-Sol farmers plan their business and divide responsibilities, as well as how they make operational decisions together and how they assign leadership responsibilities. And, Dan lets us in on the ways that being part of a co-op allows them to work less than many of the farmers they know, both day-to-day and seasonally.” Chris Blanchard