Choice2U is 51 and farms a little under 1,000 acres by himself. Worked in the industry most of life and went full-time farming in 2008. Bought old equipment that has been somewhat updated and most of the land then. I still live off my wife. I read Cotton's comments all the time on interest rates...my first truck loan was at 22% so my farm is still at risk and robbing Peter to pay Paul is a full time job.
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29, always involved with the farm.
Started out with a few cattle as a
teenager, luckily sold them off through
university and got rid of the last of
them just before BSE. Worked on the
farm when I could through that time but usually had summer jobs away from home
and later on they were in Alberta. When
I finished my degree in Ag at the U of S
I got more or less kicked off the farm
for 5 years to, in dads words, make sure
farming was what I really wanted to do.
Went to Calgary and worked in retail and
grain buying and returned 4 years later,
worked for another year in S'toon. I
took every dollar I'd saved in my life
and made a down payment on 7 quarters of
hilly, rocky land 60 miles from home and
used the line of credit that came with
the mortgage to rent another 1,000ac and
lease a sprayer in 2010. 3 years and
100" of rain later I'm trying to move my
farm closer to home and expand at the
same time. My off farm passion has
shifted from agronomy and retail to
precision farming and variable rate
consulting. I've been shacked up for 4
years but have managed to avoid biting
the bullet by convincing the old lady
that we need to travel the world and get
the farm stable before moving forward
with kids and marriage. I've been to
close to 20 countries on 4 continents
and learned something about farming in
all of them. I try to hunt and fish if
there's any time left in-between. Still
living in S'toon but hate every minute
of it, but as long as the other half has
a decent career in the big city I don't
see that changing anytime soon.
I see automation and information
technology leading back to smaller
unmanned machinery and more intensive
management but fear that we are well on
our way back to being tenant farmers for
big land owners and foreign interests.
With that I have a feeling that farm
sizes are close to peaking do to logistical concerns and the risks
associated with being an owner operator
and effective allocation of capital. I
wouldn't be surprised to see several individually managed farm units operated
by larger umbrella farming corporations
in the future.Comment
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