From Farm to Flour

"Sometimes getting soils to function is doing less. It's hard as farmers to get our heads around that," says wheat farmer, Derek Axten. To regenerate the soil, he holds back on solving every problem with chemicals or disturbing the soil with frequent plowing.

Instead, Derek and his wife Tannis are generating their own compost and choosing companion crops. Tannis, who loves biology, uses a microscope to test and adjust the microscopic life in their fields to regenerate the soil.

"Without a healthy biology it's not soil. It's just dirt," says Tannis. Everything they do is to nurture the microbiome in their soil, which makes it like a big sponge - building a network of mycelial structures that hold in moisture and nutrients for their wheat. 

Axten Farms is the first certified Regenified wheat farm. They grow resilient heritage varieties that boast complex nutrients, proteins, and fibre. 

At harvest time, the Axtens don't dessicate the crop first, AKA spray the wheat with Roundup. Shockingly, it's standard practice to kill wheat plants with herbicides when it's ripe - it dries out the chaff, making it easier to harvest. But the Axtens harvest without killing off the plant first to keep chemicals away from our food chain.

The wheat is harvested, then processed and milled at their own on-site facility. That's highly unusual for a wheat farmer to tackle every step of the process: a single-source flour from the ground up.

The Honest Farmer exclusively uses Axten Farms Flour for all our baked items, like our Sandwich Loaf, Artisan Sourdough Loaf, and Bake-Off Buns. We go even further with homemade noodles made with their wheat in our Ready-to-Bake Lasagna. If you're an avid baker, we also stock Red Fife Flour and Rye Flour.