About Us

Close to Home Organics is a family farm business, operating at Glen Valley Organic Farm. Chris Bodnar and Paige Dampier manage the business, overseeing crop planning, growing, harvesting and sales.  We grow an array of certified organic, seasonal vegetables and fruit, selling almost exclusively through a Community Shared Agriculture program.

We have lived and worked at Glen Valley Organic Farm since 2007. We started Close to Home Organics in the fall of 2011, building off of five years of farming experience at Glen Valley Organic Farm. Our guiding philosophy is that the healthiest, most flavourful and environmentally sustainable food is grown close to home.

Prior to farming, Chris was figuring out whether he wanted to continue with an academic career path while Paige was working in community planning and development work. As we planned our future together, we asked some tough questions: Do we want careers that require us to compromise our values around sustainability and social justice? What is "enough" is the sense of economic and personal fulfillment? How do we want to raise our family? Eighteen years later, we are raising three daughters and running a viable farm business while taking active roles in the organic sector and the local community.

Chris is currently stepping back from full-time farming as he begins a full time faculty position at the University of the Fraser Valley.  Over the past 18 years, Chris has worn many hats - often simultaneously -  from board member (BC Association for Regenerative Agriculture, Certified Organic Associations of BC, Glen Valley Organic Co-op, Mt Lehman Credit Union, and currently as an appeals board member with Agriculture Canada's Farm Debt Mediation Service), to educator and mentor (at Kwantlen Polytechnic University's Sustainable Agriculture Program, with the Young Agrarians Business Mentorship Program) to consultant and Limited License Agrologist, through which his consulting work has focused on supporting farms in business planning through developing business strategy and production economics. Chris has a particular interest in co-operative business models and has been active in studying agricultural co-ops in different parts of the world and developing policy approaches to supporting agricultural co-ops in BC.  

In 2017 Chris was awarded the Brad Reid Memorial Award from the Certified Organic Associations of BC, which "honours an innovative leader who has strengthened the organic community by moving the sector forward."

Paige holds an MA in Community Planning from the University of British Columbia. She manages the farm's seedling propagation and is the master of maintaining focus and reducing chaos on the farm.