WATCH: Okanagan farmer cashes in

An Okanagan man is reaping the seeds of his success after launching a small-scale farming operation just six years ago. Thirty-five-year-old Curtis Stone is an urban farmer. He grows a variety of vegetables in the backyard of his Kelowna home. He also grows produce on four other lots scattered around the downtown core.

“My learning curve was the equivalent of hitting a brick wall, I did not know anything,” says Stone. “I had no experience farming. I read some books and watched some YouTube videos. I taught myself,”

The musician-turned-farmer sells 80 per cent of his produce to high-end Kelowna restaurants. The remainder is sold at the farmer’s market. Since getting his farming operation off the ground, Stone has become one of only a few leading experts in Canada in the field of urban farming as a profitable business.

“With this style of farming, a person who uses these methods correctly and has access to markets where they can sell their stuff can make $100,000 on a half acre of land,” says Stone.

That kind of cash crop combined with a growing interest in locally produced food has yielded a big demand for Stone’s expertise. He’s doing countless speaking presentations teaching the art of farming in an urban landscape. He also has a book being published this fall and he’s launching an online course teaching others how to make a good living with a small scale farming operation like his. He says he never anticipated sowing all these seeds of success.

“No, not at all, it wasn’t even on my radar,” says Stone. “I thought if I can scratch out $20,000 doing this, that would have been cool but it has gone far beyond that and taken me to places I never imagined.”

Stone started his urban farming business with $7,000. He leases the lots from private property owners. In most cases, the land lease is in exchange for weekly supplies of fresh vegetables.