Saskatchebananawan | Interview with Dean Sopher | Flaman Connect Podcast

Move over wheat, canola, and lentils. Make room for bananas, lemons, limes, oranges, figs, and other sweet and exotic treats you wouldn’t expect to survive a Saskatchewan winter. One innovative grower is showing how the province’s bounty can become tastier and more diverse.

Former Saskatoon city boy Dean Sopher tells Mitch, Regan, and Trevor how he passed on promising career prospects in computer programming and commerce to become an off-grid produce pioneer. Now, as owner and operator of Arkopia Greenhouse Homestead, he grows a variety of exotic plants – including banana trees – in a passive solar greenhouse he built himself. He’s also raising grass-fed livestock and freeze-drying delicious, long-lasting fruit smoothies.

Dean has some sound advice for those considering permaculture and solar-powered regenerative farming – and wait ...