‘We need community to survive’: Abbotsford farmer sees growing attendance on free open-invite gatherings

ABBOTSFORD — With a bag and the crushing weight of distrust on his shoulders, Abbotsford farmer Gagan Singh first left Canada when he became disillusioned by the finger-pointing he experienced from his neighbours amid the COVID pandemic.

“I decided to leave Canada, and I didn’t want to come back […] just because I’m like, ‘This isn’t my home anymore’,” says Singh. “This wasn’t the Canada I remember growing up, and COVID just made it so much worse.”

He carried that weight in mind while travelling for two years in nations with higher poverty rates, where he noticed that the poorest populations seemed to have each other’s backs regardless of their overall well-being.

It was a jarring contrast from his return to the country.

“No one’s making eye contact with their cashiers, people don’t know their next-door neighbours,” he adds. “[T]his is not the world I want to be a part of.”

Singh Farms had been hosting small community events before the pandemic, but the local grower’s experience outside the bounds of rural Fraser Valley spurred him to plant more than just blueberries.

He wanted to grow a community.

Singh ramped up his calls to visitors through social media last year, building from farmers’ markets – to a record-breaking open community potluck, where over 300 people came to eat and chat at the local fruit farm all evening.

“Community is something that’s deeply ingrained in all of us; we’ve just forgotten it. So let’s spark that to remind people what community is like,” he told Fraser Valley Today. “If you can’t attend my community event, perhaps we can inspire you to start your own.”

Burdens shared, burdens halved

A 2021 survey conducted by the BC Centre for Disease Control reported that, on average, 40.8 per cent of adults in Abbotsford felt a “strong sense of community belonging”, with 13.3 per cent “who always feel lonely”.

Those numbers are in contrast to five years earlier, when 72.7 per cent of residents aged 12 and older in the Fraser Health East area reported feeling the same sense of belonging to their community.

“We need community to survive,” Singh says. “Back in the day, if you wanted to get groceries, you didn’t have to go to Instacart and order it. If you needed help repairing something in your building or your house, you’d go to your next-door neighbours.

“We relied on community because we had to. That was the only way to survive. But now, because of all the modern technology, you technically can live in your house and not interact with everyone and still survive, but people are feeling so disconnected.”

He plans to host more open bonfires, potlucks and barbecues over the next two or three years, but he’s also eyeing a number of ideas ranging from strawberry farming weekends and singles’ nights to large-scale events, such as a free music festival.

“The main thing is it has to be grassroots. It has to be something that’s not super corporate where people want to come out and have fun.”

Residents are invited to a farm barbecue and volunteer event all day today, May 17, at Singh Farms on 494 Sumas Way.

More information can be found through Singh’s social media or by signing up on his website.