Julie Morin: I like knowing that I make a positive contribution to society

This is the sixth of a series of profiles of young egg farmers. They are all young leaders taking part in Egg Farmers of Canada’s national young farmer program, and will participate in the Canadian Young Farmers’ Forum annual conference in Ottawa February 24-26 under the theme ‘Growing Canada for 150 Years’.

Julie Morin

Age: 36
St-Bernard-de-Michaudville, Quebec

The oldest of seven children, Julie Morin grew up on the family egg farm in the Richelieu River valley east of Montreal.

She moved away to pursue her education in management, and eventually ended up working for an insurance company in the city.

But as she turned 30, she felt the farm calling her back.

She now puts her experience to good use by helping her father Luc run a large family enterprise that includes a feed mill and a pullet operation.

“Deep inside me I always knew I would come back one day,” she says.

Though she’d helped around the farm since childhood, Julie rebelled against the lifestyle as a teen.

“I took as many jobs as I could off the farm,” she recalls.

Nevertheless, even after she had a job in Montreal, she would always come back to help with major projects – a new barn being built, for example. And she and her father Luc remained close. “There was always a strong bond and a lot of information-sharing,” she says.

Her move back home came at the right time for both of them.

She felt she’s seen what there was to see in insurance and was looking for something different. Her father, meanwhile, was at a point where it made sense for him to bring in someone to take on part of the task of running the business on a day-to-day basis.

One of the challenges they face is managing growth. Since she’s been back on the farm, there’s not one year when there hasn’t been expansion or construction of some sort.

Julie was able to put her skills to use by working on the managerial side of the operation.

Though she finds she spends more time at her desk than she would like, she says farming offers advantages over city living.

The first is her office itself: Julie delights in being able to see the countryside from her desk. She finds that view more beautiful than the urban landscapes she saw from her office in Montreal.

The second is the pride she feels in what she does.

“I like knowing that I make a positive contribution to society—feeding people by providing the perfect food,” she says. “When you are producing eggs, you can always say, I’m doing something useful today.”

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