{"id":186,"date":"2026-02-06T20:49:36","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T20:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stories.j-proj.com\/foodbeets\/?page_id=186"},"modified":"2026-02-27T20:15:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T20:15:00","slug":"the-farms","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/stories.j-proj.com\/foodbeets\/the-farms\/","title":{"rendered":"The Farms"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Nestled between\u00a0Manotick\u00a0and Greely lies a farm\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0been owned and\u00a0operated\u00a0by one family for four generations.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Amber Payne runs Arc Acres, a local cattle farm producing beef and pork for the Ottawa community.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Before she became a farmer, she studied nutrition. In her journey to becoming a holistic nutritionist, she realized she was not satisfied with the food being sold in commercial grocery stores.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cIt led me back to the farm because I wanted to produce food, I just couldn’t find food that I wanted to consume,\u201d said Payne.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Now, Payne raises cows and pigs, with a focus on producing nutrient-rich meat in a regenerative way.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

She also values having as little waste as possible throughout the farming process. A cow that does not have great\u00a0meat for\u00a0cuts will be used for\u00a0ground beef, and bones are used for soup broth.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The farm runs on a community-supported agriculture model, which \u201cconsists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a local farming operation,\u201d according to Arc Acres\u2019 website.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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At Arc Acres, Amber Payne keeps a herd of 30 cows.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Some baby females are bred to be mama cows, raising the next generation.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Amber Payne was born and raised on her farm, which is located south of Ottawa.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Amber Payne does not keep her cows in a barn; she says they have the right genetics to handle all types of weather.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Forage, Amber Payne's dog, can be intimidating to the calves.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Amber Payne's cows are mixed breeds of European and British.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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This means clients pay a deposit on their meat, which supports Payne in her work raising the animals. In the fall, the meat will be ready for pickup at Payne\u2019s farm, the Metcalfe Farmers\u2019\u00a0Market\u00a0and the Ottawa Farmers\u2019 Market.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Ryan Dekker is a regenerative farmer who runs Sun Dynasty Farm in Ottawa. He also sells his quail eggs at the Ottawa Farmers\u2019 Market at Lansdowne.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Dekker believes that his methods deliver a more nutritious product compared to\u00a0what\u2019s\u00a0available in grocery stores.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cDepending on what you feed an animal, like a chicken, a quail, a duck, whatever, it will change the\u00a0colour\u00a0of the yolk,\u201d said Dekker.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

His birds are grass-fed, a diet choice which Dekker believes to be the best option for them.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cWhen they eat greens, it changes the yolk from being a pale\u00a0colour\u00a0to a nice, rich orange or deeper\u00a0colour,\u201d said Dekker.\u00a0\u201cAlso, if you\u00a0don’t\u00a0feed corn or soy, if you only feed wheat, the yolk is much whiter.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

According to an independent study conducted by\u00a0<\/span>Nutrafarms\u00a0<\/span><\/a>in Barrie, Ont., \u201ccompared to chickens raised indoors, pasture-raised chickens offer meat that’s richer in Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Dekker believes that pasture-raising animals is better for soil health and\u00a0ultimately grows\u00a0healthier animals, which offer higher nutritional value.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cSo, regenerative farming is about using live animals and rotating them\u00a0on\u00a0the fields to rejuvenate the life and the soil and the nutrients,\u201d said Dekker.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWe’re\u00a0actually\u00a0putting\u00a0back instead of taking.\u00a0We’re\u00a0trying to put more than we can take.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Payne\u2019s cattle are also grass-fed, and they move around the pasture, implementing rotational grazing techniques.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

In the winter, the cows live outside\u00a0off\u00a0hay.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201cSo\u00a0these (cows) get fed a bale of hay every three or four days. So that is plugging in the tractor, letting it warm up for a couple\u00a0hours, digging out some hay,\u201d said Payne. \u201cThey get watered every day, so that’s pulling out a hose and putting it away, because things freeze up really quickly.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

On top of the physical\u00a0labour\u00a0that comes with running a farm on your own, Payne says\u00a0the business\u00a0is not easy to navigate financially.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cYou do get tax breaks, but not so much in Ontario for beef farming.\u00a0We’ve\u00a0lost a lot of our beef farmers here in Ontario to Quebec because the\u00a0land’s\u00a0significantly cheaper,\u201d said Payne.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span>She also worries about the future of the farm.\u00a0Once she\u00a0inherits\u00a0it from her father, she will have to pay the capital gains tax.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Yet every morning, she wakes up knowing the farm, the animals and the people who support her business need her. While the job has its\u00a0ups and downs, Payne is fulfilled by the work she does for the land and her community.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cI’m at the abattoir, working, cutting my beef that’s been hanging in the fridge for two weeks, and my animals come in,\u201d said Payne. \u201cThey get killed in the room next door and\u00a0one minute I’m crying, I’m grieving for that animal, and then the next day I’m feeding four-year-old kids that I get to watch grow.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The Farm The Process The Table Nestled between\u00a0Manotick\u00a0and Greely lies a farm\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0been owned and\u00a0operated\u00a0by one family for four generations.\u00a0 Amber Payne runs Arc Acres, a local cattle farm producing beef and pork for the Ottawa community.\u00a0 Before she became a farmer, she studied nutrition. In her journey to becoming a holistic nutritionist, she realized she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-186","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.j-proj.com\/foodbeets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.j-proj.com\/foodbeets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.j-proj.com\/foodbeets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.j-proj.com\/foodbeets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.j-proj.com\/foodbeets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/stories.j-proj.com\/foodbeets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459,"href":"https:\/\/stories.j-proj.com\/foodbeets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/186\/revisions\/459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.j-proj.com\/foodbeets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}