Ken Brooks

Ken is a beef and maple syrup producer from Franklin, Quebec. 

Ken has had farming in his blood since birth and has never even remotely considered leaving the farm that his great-grandfather built up. “I’ve known that I wanted to farm since I was two years old, even though that sounds ridiculous,” he says. “I just enjoy doing the things that a farmer does!”

Ken’s farm is a mixed operation located in Franklin– a small town in southern Quebec near the American border. The farm produces maple syrup, apples and has a small herd of beef cattle. “We tap about 10 000 maple trees, we have 3000 apple trees and a herd of 30 beef that we run as a cow-calf operation,” says Ken. 

Ken manages the family farm along with his wife, Celine Raby, and his father, Gordon. His three kids are always enthusiastic helpers too and are showing a growing interest in agriculture at the young ages of six, nine and eleven.

“There’s always some expansion of the farm going on, but I’m not a big farmer,” he explains, “I’m more of an old-time farmer who likes producing but who would rather not take care of the marketing aspect.”

Ken joined the QFA as a director in January 2009 and hopes that his participation will help to bring about some change within the farming community. “I’ve been a director for the local UPA syndicate for some time now, and I’ve realized that changing government ideas doesn’t happen in one or two years but that it takes many years of hard work and dedication to a cause.”

Ken says that he’s always been a supporter of QFA and that he’s always believed in the organization’s mission to defend the rights, provide information and advocate for Anglophone farmers in Quebec. “The QFA’s been around since I was young and it always meant something to me. English farmers in Quebec have their own portrait and are different from Quebec’s francophone farming community”, he says. “We have to defend Anglophones within the UPA and keep working to maintain a positive image of English-speaking farmers in the headlines and with the general public.”