Member Profile: Tom Manley and Homestead Organics
Posted: May 24, 2013
Categories: Food in the News / GoodFoodBites / Member Profiles
Homestead Organics was established in 1988 on the Manley family’s home farm in eastern Ontario as a certified organic grower and processor of organic grains, with a passionate mission to serve and develop organic agriculture. Tom Manley took over from his dad Murray in 1997 when they split the business and Murray kept the land while Tom moved the processing to the current location in Berwick. Tom is proud to continue his dad’s growing legacy and admirable commitment to organic food. The company is a certified organic feed mill, seed cleaner, grain marketer, and farm supply business. With 14 people on staff, they serve hundreds of small and large organic farms in Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic Canada, and northern New England.
Tom Manley grew up on the family dairy farm, and has obtained a BSC in Computer Science at the Collège Militaire Royal in St-Jean, Québec. Tom chairs the Eco Farm Day annual organic farming conference in Cornwall and chairs the community advisory committee of Alfred Campus with the University of Guelph. In 2011, Tom received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Organic Council of Ontario. With a clear passion and dedication for organic living, Tom shares with us that it is a great personal reward working with farmers on a daily basis, helping them to succeed in numerous ways, and with a symbiotic relationship they then too succeed. Tom was previously in the military, and he feels of even more use now providing service to real farmers and thus real consumers every day; the work is incredibly valuable and relevant. Tom explains, “for every acre we put in to organic production, that’s one acre that doesn’t have chemicals in it.”
Homestead Organics is a member of Sustain Ontario as a strategic networking priority. Tom describes it is a win-win arrangement. The company’s long term marketing efforts include membership and outreach among leading organizations who build local and organic food systems in Ontario. Tom also adds, “we feel that we owe equal consideration to the broader community that has served us so well over the last 25 years.” In 2011, Tom accepted the invitation from the co-chair of Sustain Ontario to become an advisory council member.
If that wasn’t enough, Tom is also the leader and promoter of the popular project Organic Central, which is in its development and financing stage. Organic Central is Canada’s first organic food park (a hub of independent agri-food businesses), which work together to reshape the Canadian food industry by bridging the gap between field and fork and bringing more organic food to your plate.
Tom will be speaking at our Food, Farms, Fish and Finance forum this weekend, where he will graciously share his successful business practices along with similar challenges other businesses with low capitalization face. He will offer lessons and tips from his own experience in growing a business, and how they succeeded despite many challenges.
Learn more here from our Growing Good Food Ideas Video where we partnered with Homestead Organics, and Tom along with a few others talk about The Value Chain of Organic Grain.
By: Josie Di Felice