Background
Helen Anne Hudson enjoyed a childhood that many can only dream about. Surrounded by a large family, with brothers, sisters, cousins, and grandparents, they lived, worked, and played together, creating magical memories on the family farm and cottages.
The farm was originally purchased in 1891 by Hudson’s great grandfather Joseph Hudson and wife Jean Thompson when they arrived in Canada from Scotland. Named Burnbrae Farms after the Scottish ‘burn’ for stream and ‘brae’ for hillside, they farmed dairy cattle until Joseph retired and Helen Anne’s grandfather and wife Evelyn took over. Farm life continued through the generations.
“Growing up this way is a sense of family,” said Hudson. “It’s a sense of belonging and it’s history.”
Hudson’s father Joe was one of five children raised in the tiny homestead house. The beginnings of the Burnbrae Farms egg industry were ignited in 1943 when he chose chickens for a high school agricultural project. By the time he finished high school, he had about 3000 chickens and continued to expand with the help of family, particularly his brother Grant and father, Arthur.
“They built ten chicken barns in the fifties and kept expanding through the sixties and seventies, purchasing farms and grading stations and further processing plants across the country to make us the national company we are today,” said Hudson.
Further education and travel
Helen Anne began working in the grading station on the farm on weekends at age 11 and then moved into the barns to work with the birds. She entered the University of Guelph, originally to pursue veterinary medicine but found she loved her agriculture courses and chose that major for her BSc degree. As she continued her work on the farm, her curiosity about the birds grew.
“I ended up working in the barns, and I just wanted to know more,” recalled Hudson. “So, I went down to the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, and I did a masters looking at laying hen early nutrition. I did a PhD after that, doing more with pullets coming into lay and looking at their bone metabolism.”
Helen met her husband at this time, and they married and started a family while living in New York for a decade. She was still able to travel home to the farm and even work in the barn at times, but with three children, it was hectic. The family then moved to Australia, finally returning home to Canada and the Burnbrae farm in 2004.
“We have been here ever since,” said Helen Anne. “We built a house, and I am entrenched here.”
The home was built within the greater Burnbrae Farms property, and includes the family home, three horse paddocks and a horse barn on 17 acres.
During her childhood, Helen was introduced to horses and fell in love. She started with a pony and obtained her first Arabian mare at age 15.
“I inherited the animal loving genes,” smiled Helen.
As well as caring for her own animals, Hudson began to rescue horses and currently houses 17 horses on her family farm.
“I have probably rescued about eight horses,” she mused. “I re-homed some of them and I have a lot of older horses that I have taken in. People tell me that they can’t keep their horse anymore, ask if I will take them, and I say yes.”
Frontenac Arch Biosphere
Helen Anne Hudson is not only passionate about animals, she also cares deeply about protecting the environment that we all share. Her property is located on the Frontenac Arch Biosphere and she sits on the board for the biosphere.
“I’m a co-chair of the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Network, which is the organization that administers this biosphere,” she explained. “There’s nineteen biospheres in Canada with four of them in Ontario, and we’re one of those.”
“The Frontenac Arch Biosphere is a tiny piece of the Canadian shield that has popped up below its range. We have a lot of rock here with granite, sandstone, limestone, and more. You’ll have a rocky outcropping, and then some land you can farm, and then a rocky outcropping. I’m embedded in one of these little cultivable areas between the rocks.”
If you are proclaimed a biosphere by UNESCO, you have three goals: conservation, education, and sustainable development with a mandate to promote these goals within the area. There is an action plan for the biospheres that gets updated periodically and guides the mandate. Those goals need to be met in order to maintain the UNESCO status. The status is reviewed every ten years.
The Frontenac biosphere was designated in 2002.
“It has been 20 years and we are just finding our feet,” said Hudson. “You work with all the other conservation minded organizations, government and academia, and you try to improve biodiversity and protect natural corridors for animals to move through and do whatever is needed.”
“It’s very fulfilling, and it’s my chance to help out the environment because I’ve always loved the natural landscape around this area, and I love nature in general.”
Burnbrae Farms Senior Advisor and Industry Liaison to Director of Corporate Responsibility
Hudson’s interest in a sustainable and protected environment extends to her work with Burnbrae Farms and beyond. In 2012, she wrote the first Burnbrae Sustainability report detailing Burnbrae Farm’s environmental and corporate responsibility and then developed the five key pillars program, based on the Farm and Food Care model, in conjunction with Dave Chapman, a fellow employee. The pillars include Environment, Animal Care, Health and Wellbeing, Safe Nourishing Food and Community Spirit.
The program was developed with an annual report that provides a summary of Burnbrae Farms sustainability objectives and progress against the five pillars and other goals. In 2020, Sonya Fiorini took over as Director of Corporate Social Responsibility and has continued to develop the program, in tandem with Helen Anne who has moved into a more senior advisory role.
Hudson’s other responsibilities include close work with organizations like PIP to represent Burnbrae Farms in the research world. She attends events such as the Poultry Industry Council Research Day and is currently the chair of the Canadian Poultry Research Council Board and sits on the Egg Farmers of Canada Research Committee. She also sits on the PIP Board and PIP Governance, Leveraging and Heritage Chicken Program Steering Committees.
Sustainability and Agriculture
The Canadian government is looking for ways to encourage all industries to reduce greenhouse gasses, including the poultry industry.
“Research at a national level will be focusing on mitigation of climate change. But to me, whatever we do to make ourselves more efficient is working towards that goal,” explained Hudson. “More efficient birds, feed ingredients, feeding them in the proper diet, so that they don’t waste nutrients, growing crops without wasting nutrients, regenerative agriculture and looking at soil health.”
“It’s fascinating to me that agriculture could really reduce its carbon footprint just by improving soil quality. I feel that any work we do to look at making ourselves more efficient will contribute to that goal.”
Burnbrae Farms Environmental Initiatives.
The Burnbrae Farms 2021 Sustainability Report is currently posted on their website. You can read about their multiple sustainability initiatives here, too many to include in one article.
“We made a commitment to be at net zero emissions by 2050,” said Hudson.
Current activities towards this goal include opening the first solar powered egg farm in Woodstock, Ontario, and a solar installation at the main Burnbrae farm in Lyn Ontario to reduce electricity.
“We also, within our operations, look for efficiencies like LED retrofits for the lights, trying to capture steam going out to heat water coming in, and selecting the most efficient motors.”
“Here, in Lyn especially, we plant a lot of trees, which, of course, have been labeled as a great greenhouse gas mitigation. In the past fifteen years we’ve planted more than twenty thousand trees on this farm alone.”
Hudson personally plants anywhere between ten and 100 trees annually. She stresses that it is important to buy native trees, because ornamental trees may not provide food and shelter for wildlife in the way that native trees do.
“I have a jungle garden with lots of bees and insects,” she said. “We plant native flowers, and transplant them, and move them around to fill the gardens with flowers that the insects and the birds will like.”
“Sustainability is a way of life. It’s in the everyday act that you’re doing. It’s not just a plan on paper.”
Final Thoughts on Sustainability, Eggs, and Family Values
“I’m very much a proponent of all agriculture. We’re all in this together. I think that all of us have a very important job to do, and research is important to keep agriculture relevant and keep it improving.”
“I really believe in our product. I totally believe that eggs are one of the most nutritious foods on the planet, with some of the best nutrient composition for feeding the world. I hope that, into the future, people will continue to see the value of eggs, knowing that they are also a fairly low carbon footprint product.”
“People need to eat, and we all live on the land, and if every farmer and every person did a little bit to enhance sustainability and biodiversity on their property it would make everything better.”
“We all have to do our bit. That’s what my mother used to say, and that’s one of our family values.”
