Pro's and Con's of where you farm?

[SASKFARMER3]

Pros nice black rich soil

Con 2 in rain back to back takes crop

Pro whole farm in a 10 mile radius

Con whole farm in a 10 mile radius hail storm or severe weather isn’t nice

Pro can rent and buy if you want but can choose also

Con two BTOs keep top end going

Pro higher elevation land doesn’t freeze

Con lower nice flat dirt freezes one in 16 and its ugly

[sawfly1]

west central sask. on top edge of dk. brown soil , clay loam , loamy sand . and a few black qtr.s and some sand.
land ranges from J H k crop insurance to l &m on the poor stuff.
mostly flat . some areas lots of rock, not tons of small stuff but big , 2 ft. to 10 ft. around.
not the whole country , just mine .. or seems that way . and they are eventually getting all dug.
except rented land where I am not about to start digging them

climate , more worry about drought than to wet. frost season equal to prince albert for some reason.
have seen frost every month, snow every month,
pretty good area all in all.
dry enough for peas , wet enough for canola and most times , long enough season for wheat
4 terminals within 20 miles, 2 hr from stoon or lloydminister,
and 15 minutes from civilisation.

[Quadtrack]

North of Saskatoon.

Pro-can grow a wide variety of crops-peas, red lentils, fababean, canola, wheat, barley, oats and pretty rare the season is too short

Con-except for the last ten years, running short of moisture in August.

Pro-rich black stone free loam soil. Virtually all quarters 160 acres.

Con-land prices have risen dramatically like most places but now too high unless you leave your pencil in the desk drawer.

Pro-two miles off 4 lane primary highway and lots of delivery options within 40 miles. 40 miles to city.

Con-40 miles to city so wife goes shopping a lot! lol

Pro-Sask is a great prov to live in

Con-Sask is within Canada and our idiot PM is going to run uncontrolled deficits for his whole time as idiot PM and my kids kids will struggle to pay it back.

Happy New Year!

[grassfarmer]

As you mentioned not moving AF5 I'll give you my experience of 3 places!

SW Scotland Pros:
Easier to make money in a heavier subsidized agriculture. Mild climate. Not prone to drought. Less distances. Well developed agricultural infrastructure - eg auction marts. Surrounded by the people you grew up with, fellow countrymen.

Cons: Poor, very acidic soil, pile of rocks with some dirt sprinkled on top. Expensive land. Too many non farming people in the rural areas. Too much regulation. Generally wind and rain describes the weather. Miserable - no sun kinda place. Archaic farm buildings and houses that you can't alter or demolish. Intense competition for farms. Expensive cattle feed due to shortage of supply (small national land-base) England for a neighbour (just kidding.....maybe!)

West Central Alberta:
Pros: Better soil with no rocks. Endless well water supplies. Half the price of Scottish land of same productive value. Awesome grass growing climate, generally good moisture, No wind. Sunny winters. Lots of grazing opportunities available. Cattle feed usually available - always substantially cheaper than Scotland.

Cons: Reckless oil companies, contaminated land and water supplies. Sandy soil that droughted easily. Lots of competition for farmland/hayland. Extreme frost pocket (about the worst on the prairies) limiting growing season. Lack of plant variety - basically poplar and spruce for trees. Drug/crime riddled rural communities (oil patch side effect) No young people interested in agriculture or working on farms (oil patch side effect)

SW Manitoba: Pros: Cheap land - half price of Alberta land of same productive value. Better soil, high ph clay loam that retains moisture. Awesome native plant variety (diversity is good). Can also grow C4 plants. Diversity of wildlife. Lots of grazing opportunities available. Feed way more abundant and cheaper to buy (no feedlot sector competition) Lots of young people/new entrants interested in regenerative agriculture. No oil industry.

Cons: Rocks (again), windy (again), poorer climate for cattle (heat and humidity) and too many bugs. Prone to drought due to higher temps and harder to manage grass (lignification) Poorer ag infrastructure eg auction marts. Poorer other services eg schools small town businesses. Well water not so dependable in places. Too many environmental hooligans still draining and pushing trees.

One comment that applies to all three: Land increasingly overpriced relative to productive value.

[GDR]

I'm about an hour south of AB5, similar pros and cons. We have more black soil though and with it can feel extremes of wet and dry. Traditionally has been a "sure crop" area. Too many acreages and people in general but not much you can do about that.

Pretty happy to live where we do, even with the problems we have still are very fortunate.

Like Grassfarmers post over 3 different areas. Always easy to look over the fence or down the road and think they're better off but usually there is always something to even the score. No such thing as the perfect patch, just gotta learn to adapt to conditions.

[farmaholic]

There's no pro's here in the Slum of the Ghetto, only con's. If you weren't born and raised here, you wouldn't live here!

None of us here are good at what we do and can't be trusted.

[fjlip]

There's no pro's here in the Slum of the Ghetto, only con's. If you weren't born and raised here, you wouldn't live here!

None of us here are good at what we do and can't be trusted.

"Drug/crime riddled rural communities", is that you farma?

Pro, close to city no...? What are roads/highways like? We are always complaining, thinking too far from civilization to matter.

[farmaholic]

"Drug/crime riddled rural communities", is that you farma?

Pro, close to city no...? What are roads/highways like? We are always complaining, thinking too far from civilization to matter.

I can't complain about crime. Never had a problem. Nice to be 30 minutes from a large center for business reasons. Urban creep can be a positive and negative....depending. Poorer land prices can be propped up by squatters. Good land prices propped up by farm and investor demand.

I always like joking around(Ghetto references)..I think we farm middle of the road dirt. With some bad patches. Some is well drained and wide open and some with potholes....we make a living on it. There are limitations, I know and respect them. I've seen both alot better and alot worse. Alot more bush just a couple of miles north of us and little natural bush south of us.

We have good neighbors.....not too much Hutterite pressure right beside us but have investors buying and a BTO(rumoured investor backed) that rivals Colonies now. Young farmers sadly shut out of the market.

Wind can be incessantly relentless some times....day and night, but they say Lethbridge is worse. Seasonal/yearly precipitation can go both ways....but dryness seemed to outweigh too wet. Farming operations can usually be performed within a reasonable time frame unless someone is a shitty manager or has way too much bit off and can't chew it.

I live in a decent RM but the highways are taking a beating with the grain and gravel being hauled on them. Highway 35 between the 48 & 33 is reduced to 8 tonnes max. 35 North of 48 to #1 is getting beaten by gravel trucks hauling gravel to the Bypass project. Highway 48 to WhiteCity used to be alot smoother when I drove to my part time job from 1983 to 1991....with the gravel hauling and grain elevator consolidation, the highway isn't what it used to be.

Lots of grain delivery options within reasonable driving distance. Lots of special crops processors. No canola crushers. Cattle numbers in decline....fewer guys but with larger herds. The area used to be a dairy hotspot....but now only two left in the immediate area but neither are huge operators(more family member operated).

Diverse cropping area....but success totally dependent on precipitation. .....lentils and canola thrive under different conditions and both are grown around here!

Someone once said the grass may be greener on the other side of the fence....but it's harder to mow. I was hoping grassfarmer was going to post and he did(thanks).

There is basically no oil activity right around us. A small oil field close by and a single well maybe 10-12 miles away. Potash is close too but doubt we will see any benefits...just outside the "testing zone".

[Horse]

I live nw of Edmonton con lots of rocks and the poorest county in Alberta,a large field is anything over 30 acres, as when the oldtimers cleared land in small pieces then threw rocks into bush so when they had money for some more clearing they left a strip of bush where they put the rocks. Pro still have over 300 acres of bush land,I enjoy hunting and trapping more than picking rocks and farming, con have ate more deer than you could imagine, and was good fishing but that has gotten a lot worse the last few yrs, con land is still cheap enough I can leave those trees there, I have made my living for 45 yr and I don't see me changing now.
I left some of the best dirt in Alberta around Red Deer because land was 200$/acre then, If I would have stayed I would still probably be gone as I don't have that killer instinct to survive with the BTOs one more con ,very few BTOs in this neck of the woods and I have close newborns.And haven't punched a time clock since 1971.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Grassfarmer, thanks for your input. I really respect anyone who is willing and able to make a move like that, not once but twice. The learning curve must be steep.

Land price is the number one reason why I was looking elsewhere. Could have sold here, and bought back 5 or 10 times as much land in decent parts of Sask or Manitoba 15 to 20 years ago. The trouble was making the payments without an outside source of income, which are much harder to come by elsewhere.
Land is still prohibitively expensive here, but most other areas have since closed the gap, much too late to move now. A lot of my former neighbors did it though. Some have since sold out and came back. In hindsight though, I probably would have been just in time to enjoy the drought years of 01 02 and 03, then the flood years that followed, and concluded that the grass really was greener at home.

That is one more pro and con. Con, we are the last place to green up in the spring, cold wet heavy soil and cold climate, even a few miles in any direction warms up much sooner. I'm easily a week later getting into the feilds than most, leaves are delayed the same.

Pro, in the fall, we stay green longer than almost anywhere, except maybe Vancouver. Nearly always have green grass under snow in November. Tree leaves stay on longer. I find Calgary depressing, it is brown almost year around.