“Cool job” as a Waterloo-Oxford co-op crop scout started Jenn VanDeVelde’s agriculture care

Jenn VanDeVelde stands outside the farm store.

By Diane Baltaz

Despite her claims about having a “zero background in agriculture”, Jenn VanDeVelde’s willingness to adopt new ideas about farm diversification and community building fashioned her into becoming one of Norfolk’s emerging farm leaders.

VanDeVelde, along with husband Dave, earned Ontario’s Outstanding Young Farmers (OYF) award in 2022.

Sponsored by several agricultural businesses and organizations, the award recognizes farmers who demonstrate excellence in farming and in the agricultural community. The 2022 award recognized the couple’s successful transition of their fourth-generation tobacco farm to a diversified farm with a food hub called Wholesome Pickins Market and Bakery.

Today, Wholesome Pickins, situated along Delhi’s eastern border, grows 200 acres of crops ranging from cash crops to assorted berries and vegetables.

The farm also features community-centred, income-generating alternatives such as a beach volleyball court, a bakery, and children’s agricultural day camps. Jennifer was instrumental in creating many of these evolutions in order to maintain the farm’s viability.

The store, bakery and full kitchen are located within a former tobacco pack barn, which sits prominently near the farm’s primary residence. The site retails their farm’s produce, prepared meals and baked good with locally-sourced ingredients, as well as products from local farms and food producers. They also sell flowering plants and pick-your-own (PYO) produce.

Pundits hail it as an example of strengthening local food security.

The Trip Advisor webpage says this about Wholesome Pickins: “Family owned farm, market and bakery! We grow ever-bearing and June-bearing strawberries which means we pick berries fresh everyday from May until October! We have an on-site scratch bakery which specializes in homemade pies, tarts, cookies and muffins. We carry a huge selection of Norfolk County produce and products! We are committed to farmers and business close to home and always provide the very best our area has to offer!”

Wholesome Pickins’ location at the junction of Church Street, and the Harmony and Brantford Roads, is handy for Delhi’s residents and growing commuter crowd. VanDeVelde said that this route attracts Lake-Erie bound traffic with weekenders who drive by in order to bypass Simcoe.

“They come in on Thursday and Friday ,and then again on Sunday.”

Her non-farm agricultural contributions included a term as president of the Ontario Berry Growers Association. She recently assumed the chair of the provincial Outstanding Young Farmers committee.

Yet VanDeVelde says that she had no initial farm knowledge: “I grew up near Ottawa with a zero-farming background.”

Life changed when VanDeVelde studied biological sciences at the University of Guelph, from which she graduated in 2005. Two concurrent events paralleled her studies: meeting Dave, whom she married in 2006, and the other life changer was her summer job as an agricultural scout with the Waterloo-Oxford Co-operative.

“It was a very cool job -- it started me in agriculture,” said VanDeVelde. “I got to see a lot of farms as I was covering a big area.”

Equipped with a new car, VanDeVelde said that she traveled to farms across southwestern Ontario, from Niagara to west of London, logging 30,000 km in her first year. She monitored crops such as strawberries, raspberries, sweet corn, and blueberries - checking them for insect pests, disease and weed pressure as part of the co-op’s integrated pest management (IMP) program.

VanDeVelde moved on to be a crop specialist with Sylvite.

This University of Guelph grad applied IPM methodology and the marketing practices she learned from these jobs to the VanDeVelde farm, which she and Dave had moved to in 2006.

“At that time Dave’s family was scaling back their tobacco and were looking for alternatives, so I suggested that they start with strawberries,” she said.

The initial plantings were “just seasonal at that point,” said VanDeVelde, adding that they used an old tobacco tying machine to sell the berries roadside.

By 2011 the family converted the strip room in their pack barn to a small market; they hired staff and sold farm-produced goods from area farmers.

“These farmers were people who were not in the retail business, but they were willing to sell their goods to us as they didn’t have to travel,” said VanDeVelde.

At one point, VanDeVelde enrolled in teachers’ college, figuring that the profession’s summer holidays freed her up for farm work. She taught math and science in area schools and worked as a supply teacher until 2013.

‘That’s when we built this,” she said, indicating the area around the barn. The family renovated the barn’s remaining space, adding additional storage, the bakery and a full kitchen in order to produce sweet and savoury home-style meals.

The family also added “day –neutral” (ever-bearing) strawberries for an extended growing season.

“They’re my favourite-tasting strawberries,” VanDeVelde added. That is when she stopped teaching. “I did less and less teaching as by then I had no time.”

Today, the farm employs 38 full time and seasonal staff, including two full time cooks, two full time bakers and 15 off-shore Jamaicans who have worked there for past five years.

The VanDeVelde team currently grows asparagus, squash, rhubarb, wholesale and PYO pumpkins, strawberries and rhubarb and raspberries.

The family recently added high tunnels for new raspberry plantings -- portable greenhouse-like structures whose sides are rolled up and down according to weather conditions.

Cash crops are rotated, along with a cover planting of an oats, peas and barley mix.

“By 2021, there was no more tobacco as there were too many things on the go,” said VanDeVelde. The remaining bulk kilns were removed last year, and they rent the greenhouse to a neighbouring tobacco farmer.

A proponent of agri-tourism, VanDeVelde joined Agri-tourism Ontario in order to network for new ideas.

The farm’s corn maze is popular, featuring a Halloween Scare Night. Since 2013, the farm hosted a Canada Day event with entertainment, including a bouncy castle and half-price PYO berries.

The summer day camp for children aged four to 10 began in 2022 when an employee offered to create one. Staff built a program that enables children to explore farm life by working in the bakery, picking crops and participating in nature walks around the farm. The program grew from six children to approximately 30 youth today.

“It’s a great way for kids to spend their summer, especially if they don’t come from that background,” said VanDeVelde. “We have a great team here and we are always sharing ideas.”

The beach volleyball court was added in 2025, inspired by VanDeVelde’s involvement with Simcoe’s XVC Volleyball Club, where she serves as secretary-treasurer.

“It’s in the middle of the farm and it’s a fun place to play – you’ve got a beautiful view - truthfully, the sunsets from there are amazing.”

VanDeVelde participates in an informal network of OYF alumni who share daily online conversations on topics from fertilizer application rates to marketing and farm successes and failures.

Their daily chats reflect her own family’s concerns about how the Canadian and world situations pose significant challenges within all fields of agriculture.

“I think that the world is giving us a pause. The cost of product pricing is increasingly more difficult,” said VanDeVelde, adding that she already sees fuel surcharges added onto some delivery bills.

“All farmers are seriously looking at their operations.”

“Economies of agriculture are what are driving a lot of our conversation now. Farmers are now part of a business, and dealing with costs are a big part of their time… therefore it’s hard to get on a tractor when business is a focus.”

VanDeVelde’s short term planning question is: “How can we continue producing local food and supporting other local businesses? People can only afford to pay so much for a quart of strawberries; but we must ask can we afford to put them on the shelf? The cost of production is rising faster than prices in cash crops and horticulture. The beef and dairy producers are also reporting higher bills on their desks.”

Moreover, their children, Ryan and Emily, are in their senior years at Delhi District High School with one of them graduating this year. VanDeVelde said that these two are exploring their interests in post-secondary school life – including whether they should become the fifth generation of VanDeVelde farming that land.

Therefore, succession planning is part of her family’s long-term goals for both the farm and its store.

“There is something I want to do to make them something to come home to so as to ensure that we have something built here to be attractive to the next generation -- although that has to be their choice.” 