Every so often, I ask my wife, 鈥淲hat would you think if I had ended up a farmer? Would you have lived on a farm with me, worked as a nurse in Preeceville鈥檚 hospital?鈥�
Her answer roughly equates to, 鈥淵ou would have married someone else.鈥�
We then laugh, and I shut my mouth. Something along those lines, at least.
For me, that time has passed, but 20 years ago it was a very real choice. My dad really wanted me to farm and my grandparents did, too. But I went off to university, failed and have found different paths through life.
These days I鈥檓 fairly far removed from my dirt-eating-while harrowing past. I鈥檝e often told people I interview that I鈥檓 one of the last generation of farm boys, i.e. those who have left the farm for other work. There aren鈥檛 many farms, and thus farm boys, left these days. Unlike in the 1990s farming now can be profitable. That means those who are on the farm may actually chose to stay on it, as opposed to leave in droves, just like my generation and countless generations before that.
Still, I don鈥檛 imagine it鈥檚 all that easy to start up a farming operation and get established these days. With the price of land, combines, tractors, sprayers and fuel, I can鈥檛 imagine how much capital you鈥檇 need to start. You鈥檙e not going to get very far starting with just one quarter and a JD 4020 pulling a 14-foot cultivator. (Does anyone even use cultivators anymore?)
Thus it was with interest I read the National Post鈥檚Colby Cosh鈥檚 column of Oct. 23 headlined, 鈥淪askatchewan farmers are holding themselves hostage to preserve an antique social order.鈥�
He talks about how incoming legislation limiting who can own farmland in this province as something rather quaint in trying to preserve the farm way of life instead of letting laissez faire rule.
One of the key points in the proposed Saskatchewan legislation is limiting the ability of pension funds to come in and sweep up land.
Pretty much every farmer has, at one point or another, looked across the fence line and wondered if they would be able to buy that land next door. When land does sell, a call to a neighbour of the last several decades, asking if they are interested, can seal a deal in a heartbeat. Maybe a few neighbours might be interested and maybe there鈥檚 a bit of a bidding war. But at least you might have a chance at that choice piece of land next to yours.
I鈥檓 sure there鈥檚 been some resentment over the years when the occasional Hutterite colony splits and buys a large block of land for a new colony. When I worked with the Rosetown Eaglein 1997 this happened. The Hutterite colony was well-capitalized, made offers most did not refuse and the deal was done.
That can be hard to take if you had your eye on that land next to yours, being muscled out of contention. But what happens when the buyer is not a Hutterite colony, but one of the largest financial entities in the country, like a pension fund? How do you compete against that, especially if some of that money could even be your own pension?
If, 20 years ago, I had chosen to take up farming, could we have competed with the neighbours? Surely our operation would have been stronger, with a young person鈥檚 energy and enthusiasm added to the mix. Perhaps instead of selling, we would have bought land. I would have bought a neighbouring farmyard or built my own house on our land. Maybe the $2 wheat would have made me broke and I would have ended up building pipelines anyway?
At least I had the opportunity. I simply chose to do something else.
Young people today need to at least have a chance to get into farming. It鈥檚 hard enough already. Competing against the Canada Pension Fund shouldn鈥檛 be one of the challenges.
鈥� Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
