Evidence of meeting #14 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was farm.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
Are you guys looking at any of that? Is anybody looking at alternative products? Carter.
Farmer, As an Individual
We've been seriously working with Ducks Unlimited and the Growing Forward program to go towards more environmental farming. We're trying to run our cows...where we don't have to start a tractor in the winter. This year, feeding 240 cows, they got 20 bales of hay and that's it. We're trying to get to the point where we're running our cows cost-effectively, not having to start a tractor in the winter, not having to crop any acres, stuff like that.
The Growing Forward program was a huge step in the right direction for guys to go more environmentally friendly.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Thank you, and I sure appreciate your taking time at this time of year to be here to talk with us and to throw around some ideas.
Certainly I heard some great ideas today, both in this panel and the previous one. I think the three things I'd take most out of this group here today, in terms of what I'm hearing about concerns you have, or ideas, are, first, regulations and how stifling they can be. That was one thing I took out of it. The other two really tie together. I'm certainly hearing about trade issues from all the young farmers here, and in particular the options. We get into the idea, of course, for our grain farmers and the Wheat Board there. I certainly hope the opposition was listening when you guys talked, and when the earlier panel talked, about the idea that farmers want to have that choice to be able to market their own products.
We're in an age now where with the Internet and the business skills you all have--and you clearly do, I can sense that for sure--you're able to make those decisions for yourselves and you're able to find the best price for your product by the technology that's available, by the marketing you can do for your own products. If we were able to free up more to do that by ending the monopoly of the Wheat Board and by opening up trade markets along that axis for you, it certainly would be helpful.
I'd also like to hear from you...and I've asked this question of each panel we've had on this future of young farming. I found most of the answers have been on a pretty common theme, but it's always good to hear the ideas that I hear. I don't want to lead you at all on this, and that's why this question is so thought provoking, because it's the way I ask you the question. It's not leading in any way, and you can just share your open thoughts.
To the three youngest farmers, Colin, Carter, Brad...and I know you said you didn't meet Carter's definition, Brad, but I'm going to call you young, because you're the same age as I am and I don't want to call myself old. Those would be the three youngest farmers. I'd like to just ask you guys, and I'm certainly not going to exclude the others if you'd like to answer when the three of them are done.... If there's time, I would invite anyone to answer the question.
Basically, I'd like to hear your thoughts on how the industry has changed, say, for the three of you, from when your parents started farming. What do you think has been the biggest change in the industry from then until now? Whoever wants to start can go ahead.
As an Individual
I'll go, Colin.
I would say the biggest thing now...I'll even take it one step further to my grandfather's time, when whoever worked the hardest got ahead in life. The next one was whoever could find efficiencies would get ahead. In my generation now it's who's willing to adapt to technology, who's willing to look beyond just the meat and potatoes of a grease gun and a wrench that is in your back pocket. Agronomy and growing crops, that's in your back pocket. You can't even play the game unless you have those two.
What is setting us apart in profitability is the marketing, the business arrangements, even if it is a multinational--partnerships. It is not being scared to take on the new challenges...things from satellite imagery variable rating, which we're doing on our farm, to RTK guidance. Those are the minor things we're adjusting and those are making the difference now. It's using the computer and using technology to get ahead.
The other things are important as heck to be there, but that's to even get in the game.
Farmer, As an Individual
One story that always comes to my mind when I think about that is about one of the biggest cattle feeders in this country, who came to this country with a dollar in his pocket. He is now one of the most successful businessmen in Alberta. Dad is always talking about when he got started. He'd buy a quarter section of land, rent a couple of quarters from neighbours, and get started in this industry. Now, to buy that land and try to find land around that you can rent from somebody is very difficult, I find.
Going back to the transition loans that Francis was talking about, I had experience with that last May, after Prime Minister Harper announced the new program. I went to the FCC to have a transition loan with my neighbour. We went in there, both of us, and talked to them. I had a pretty thick business plan of how things were going to go, and it was a flat out, “No, you don't qualify under our standards, with under six years of farming.”
A friend of mine left high school when he was 18. He had a few cows at home, but he went to the city to get a job. Four or five years later he came back home to start farming, and because he had those few cows on the farm, he was already classified as a farmer. When he went to the bank to get money to buy land, they said, “No, you're not a starting farmer any more.” With five cows, I don't think you're an established farmer already.
Farmer, As an Individual
In my dad's day, they didn't do much analysis on costs and stuff. They simply planted the crop and harvested it and were able to make a profit. Now, with the technology, and knowing your costs and your profit margins, because they're so fine, you have to know what you have to spend and what you have to make. That comes back to the economies of scale, as Barb was mentioning. You can't buy a $300,000 or a $400,000 tractor and farm 500 acres. Our economics are not there. That's why the family farms have become this large. That's the differences with the technologies and agronomy today; that's the stuff that helps you succeed.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
I really am impressed by you folks, in both panels, quite honestly, by your ability to speak and to be upfront.
Brad, you used the business model and you used partnering, and I think that's likely one of the key issues. How do we promote? One of the things we've heard a lot about, but don't talk about much, is all these 65-year-old farmers who are going to be farming. I guess that's the reason why we've got so many older ones and so few coming on. There are fewer because folks like you are now farming 24,000 acres instead of 240 acres, or whatever the amount is.
How do we impress upon the young people who are coming in the need for succession planning and for the advice of others out there? I think that has to be the key. All of you have struck on it.
As an Individual
If I may, that's a great question. I would say from my experience, from my network of friends, it's actually a question you ask the generation ahead of me. If that generation isn't willing to allow it to happen, it isn't going to happen. That partnering becomes.... When I was 22 years old, I told him I wanted to farm, and it was his choice that allowed me to do it. He could have easily said he was going to take all his equity out of his farm and sell out to somebody else, and he could have told me to go to Alberta. That could have been his choice.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
And the other part? Help me. How do we get that out?
As an Individual
That's a very good question. I think it's a lot of personal choice. I don't know how to answer that. That's how family farms will survive. It's the parents and the generation ahead allowing that to happen.
Farmer, As an Individual
I think one of the biggest things is making a profit. If the older farmers were making a profit where they could retire and go down to Miami for the winter, go RVing, retire and go to Mexico, they would.
Farmer, As an Individual
No. They wish. My grandpa, he's still working to make a living. If he could have the money banked up from years of farming, I think he'd leave. He'd be happy to give the reins to my uncle right now and walk away. But there are so many older farmers out there who are still paying bills. That's the reason they're still farming.
Farmer, As an Individual
I agree with what Carter says. There are lots of these guys who still have to keep working. Their farms are their retirement, so they need to cash their farms in for a big amount of money because there hasn't been enough profitability to put enough away for retirement. It makes it tough to get the next generation to succeed them when they are not going to be able to retire on anything.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
I think we're getting near to the end.
I was interested in a couple of comments that were made around the table. I think it was you, Brad, who talked about the size of the family farm, and we also heard about that yesterday in Alberta. I can remember that my grandfather and grandmother raised 10 kids on a 100-acre farm—not a great farm, but on a farm, a 100-acre bush lot that my grandpa worked off. My dad raised seven of us, including me, on somewhere between 1,500 to 2,000 acres, and I raised my three boys on close to 3,000 acres.
I can remember back when I was a kid, when my dad was still farming 200 or 300 acres. That seemed like the good life. But the reality today is that sometimes when we think of saving the family farm, we think it has to be the small farm, the farm that we saw when we were five or six years old. The reality is that's not the case today. I was glad you brought that point up, because it still doesn't make you a corporate farm just because you have become bigger. It is a reality today, and I think there's always going to be a debate over whether that's good or bad, but it's a reality, and I don't see it changing.
Brad, you commented on AgriStability as well, and about having to be diverse and not growing some crops. I use the same example of Ontario. Everybody in the eighties in my part of the country.... We come from cow country and can grow a lot of grass, a lot of forage, and we can grow a bit of corn for silage, and those kinds of things. Like everybody else, I tried to grow corn as a cash crop, but I couldn't make money out of it. The only way I could make money out of it was to live off crop insurance or government programs. To me, that was not bankable, so I quit doing it. The reason I bring this up is that I think we have a responsibility as producers. We have in our mind that we've always done it and that we should keep doing it, but that doesn't make economic sense, does it?
I don't know whether you want to comment on that, but I thought it was an important point.
As an Individual
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for that.
Yes, in fact, that is the case. Unfortunately, a lot of guys from my demographic get into one of those crops, a crop that a lot of people in eastern Canada think we grow, and that's wheat and barley. Unfortunately, it's exactly the opposite: we can't make a go of it, guys. It's done. It's redundant. Unless we have a drastic change, it's done for. And we're voting with our drills. It's not because of political belief; it's because of my spreadsheet. It doesn't make money.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
There's one other thing I wanted to follow up.
Layton, you were talking about programs that came out in the seventies. I think you called one of them GRIP, a program I remember. You implied, I thought, that as farmers we had developed a dependency on programs. Was that what you were saying? I just wanted to clarify that, because that's what it sounded like.
Farmer, As an Individual
We don't have a dependency other than the fact that.... On the previous panel there were quite a few comments about how these programs have become capitalized into the farm—and they have. It's a reality, especially if you are a single commodity producer; you depended upon those programs to stay viable. It's unfortunate, at the same time, that those programs didn't become or remain a stop-gap, so to speak, but down the road, the retailer knew he could pay us because we were going to make a living between the program and the meagre amount we might get for that particular commodity. The retailer knew we were still going to be able to pay our bills, but he has been able to pay us less.
Carter's illustration was that in the early seventies, 80% of the value of a fat steer found its way back to either the cow-calf producer or the feedlot operator, and now, to be honest, we are under 40% in 2008. The only reason that could happen is that the programs have kept us on the land and kept us producing, when we'd have quit long ago if we didn't have those programs. That's where it comes back to the point that, in reality, we're almost laundering money for the retailer.
Conservative
Conservative
