Josh Herbin

By Lindsay Bird (BJ '09)

Josh Herbin (FYP ’05) is hard at work in a Sunday drizzle, attempting to coax the carburetor of his ancient red tractor back to life. It’s a typical day off at Lazy Acres Hopyard.

"It’s a misleading name,” says Herbin. “I assure you, I’m not lazy.” 

That part is pretty clear. The 24-year-old Nova Scotian owns and operates the small hops farm in Melanson, a few minutes outside Wolfville, NS. What sprung from a love of drinking and brewing beer now consumes his spare time—the little he has left after his job at an organic dairy farm takes a 50-hour bite out of his week. 

After an experiment in 2006 proved that hops, an essential ingredient in beer brewing, flourished in his yard, Herbin realized the commercial market was non-existent in Nova Scotia. He polled microbreweries like Halifax’s Garrison and Propeller to see if there was any interest in buying local crops. 

Interest was an understatement. Herbin sold his entire first commercial crop last year to Pump House Brewery in Moncton, NB, which used the hops in its limited edition Hop Mess Harvest Ale. Unfortunately, Herbin was too busy with his farm to get to New Brunswick for a bottle. 

He also sold cuttings of his hops—called rhizomes—through his website. Last year, he sold 120, and this year, preorders capped out at 1,000 cuttings. Herbin says publicity and word-of-mouth marketing about Lazy Acres is encouraging other likeminded people to try their hand at growing the vines.

This year, he hopes to sell his stock for a similar seasonal beer, but Herbin won’t settle for a repeat of last harvest’s success. He also wants to sell dried hops in smaller quantities, making local homebrew a possibility for Nova Scotians.

With a final inspection left to pass this summer, Herbin’s hops will soon be certified organic. The designation is a valuable marketing tool, but more importantly, the organic movement is about taking care of the health of the land and the plants, he says. 

The young grower reads about agriculture constantly; his desk overlooking the backyard is littered with titles about organic vegetables and livestock care. But reading is no match for hands-on experience. 

Herbin traveled last winter to established hop farms in British Columbia and the western United States, gathering ideas to bring back to the East Coast. The trip was thanks to Nova Scotia’s first-ever Agri-Food Innovation Award, which he won last March for his hops growing initiative. 

He credits King’s for arming him with the writing and analytical skills needed to write the winning application.

“From a business perspective, it’s been good for communication,” he says of his education at the College. “King’s was great for all of that.”

While Herbin loves hops—he even bears a tattooed version of the vines, trailing along his left forearm—the endless possibilities of agriculture are what really energize him.

“There are so many things you can do with a farm that aren’t just related to growing and selling,” he says.

He points to Acadia Community Farms as an example, a student farm that grows vegetables for Acadia University’s cafeteria, as well as for the community. He’s excited for new, collaborative models such as this to tear down the idea of farms as distant entities.

“More and more people are interested in local agriculture, getting to know farmers,” he says, stressing the importance of people becoming involved in the food they eat. “Now is the time.”

Herbin contributes to the community farm whenever he can, lending equipment and sharing expertise. Last year, he helped build a composter. 

This spring, two of the farm’s cofounders are joining Herbin at Lazy Acres to help establish a vegetable patch. Herbin has already started, with heritage tomatoes, broccoli, parsley and more poking through the soil in his newly built greenhouse.

A neighbour is kindly donating a patch of land for the vegetables, and Herbin promises he’ll feed her well in return.

Herbin never stops at just one goal. Beyond selling his cuttings and dried hops, he hopes to sell his crops through a websitedriven delivery service that will allow hungry users to click through available vegetables and make orders throughout the season, furthering the local food movement beyond farmers’ markets.

“A man without land is nothing,” quotes Herbin from Mordecai Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. He says those words have stuck with him throughout his journey, from hops to a grassroots food revolution.

After taking an hour’s break, Herbin is itching to get back to his land, his mind filled with digging cuttings, sprouting vegetables and the broken tractor. Spring is hardly the time for a farmer to sit around.