By Brennan Phillips
Special to the Western News
Every week the Penticton Western News is giving a look at one of the many vendors who make the Farmers’ Market such a popular place to go on Saturday. This week, we look at Justene Wright, owner of the Food of the Sun farm.
Justene and her husband Mark own and operate the Food of the Sun farm in Cawston. Fully organically certified, they have been farming in the Okanagan for the last 10 years.
“I farm organically because it wouldn’t make sense to me to spray chemicals on the food we eat, most of the food we grow we eat,” said Wright. “I choose to certify too, because it’s always nice to have somebody that’s watching and making sure what you are doing is certified organic, not just assuming.”
At her farm, Wright raises a variety of crops, from garlic and lettuces, to produce that’s harder to raise in the Okanagan, such as broccoli and cabbage. Not everyone can believe that the produce that Wright and her family bring to the market was grown in the Okanagan.
“A lot of tourists ask, ‘Did I grow this?’, sometimes they’re speculating, they don’t believe me that I grew all of it,” said Wright. “So I like to educate them that this is a true farmers’ market, that the people who are standing here actually grew the food.”
The smoke and heat of the summer this year hasn’t left the Food of the Sun farm unscathed. Getting used to dealing with difficult times is what Wright considers to be the hardest part of farming organically.
“This year especially, it’s dealing with loss. Knowing that that’s a part of dealing with organics, that sometimes you lose crops, sometimes there’s something going on in your fields that you can’t do anything about. Losing food and not being able to do anything about it, that’s the hardest part.”
The Food of the Sun farm, and the other Meet Your Farmer vendors, can be found at the Penticton Farmers’ Market every Saturday.
