This is the time of year where I manage to achieve a more reasonable balance between the physical and mental labours associated with farming. I am spending time on the computer, reading and going to meetings. I am not even dirty.

Predictably as a farmer, I don't consider this to be real work. This erroneous (aren't they all) stereotypical generalization is matched by the one that suggests things are "slowing down" for farmers now that it is cold outside.

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Moving on.

Rabble rousing is an activity for which I have little time in the summer, yet I consider it an important farming duty. You would not believe the amount of mischief that is performed under the guise of "good for farms/farmers/farming," and right now I have time to take stock of all the latest events advertised as such.

This year, I have emerged from the fog of summer labour to realize that a new farmers' market proposal for the City of Vancouver has entered a much more serious planning stage. A study of the preliminary business plan for the New City Market suggests to me that all the farms in B.C. making a living selling at Vancouver farmers' markets will be required to become suppliers of their own retail store - complete with massive overhead, more time away from the farm and an erosion of the consumer/producer connection that we have strived so hard to create. Not good for this farmer.

Born out of the reasonable, fervent and long-held desire for surety when it comes to space for farmers' markets (for which I would happily pay more in stall fees), the New City Market proposal has become a behemoth of meeting rooms, marketing and storage facilities, eateries and distribution hubs in addition to a multi-day, dawn-to-dusk farmers' market. Gone would be the four-hour markets where we can get to the city and back in a day, fitting everything we need into one 12-foot trailer, trading potatoes for money with the people who are going to eat them.

When I came across the initial proposal a year ago, I really didn't think something so cumbersome and costly would ever get off the ground. Shocked was I to discover this week that there is now a fully-funded preliminary business plan document most egregiously boasting of increased access to less expensive, local food.

Make our food cheaper? Are you kidding me? We are supposed to lower prices on top of changing the entire business plan of the farm?

I fired off a letter to the project leaders that signalled the commencement of a good bit of rabble rousing that might last at least until spring thaw. The time has come to wield the large stick grown of almost 20 years attendance at the Vancouver farmers' markets.

In other news, this week I will be taking advantage of the good outdoor working conditions to clear some brush piles, cut a little more firewood, build a grain trough for the cows and work for a farmer up the road sorting potatoes.

And I might play a little hockey on a lake nearby...

Anna Helmer recommends therapeutic letter-writing to your MLA or MP - it's free, and food lobbyists pay millions for that access.