WINNIPEG – An agri-business expert says that many small farms are “kicking the shins” out of larger operations.
Richard Dawson, who worked for Cargill for 35 years before starting his own consulting business in Winnipeg, said the days when bigger was better are out. Now, small is beautiful and this bodes well for prairie
communities.
“I believe we’re seeing some technology and some marketing … which will mean there will be some good scope for the medium-sized farm,” he said.
Dawson said the computer chip has made it possible for smaller farms to specialize and find an economy of scale that allows them to compete with bigger farms.
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Specialized and diversified farms have been finding premiums for their products and forming alliances with larger companies, he said.
Dawson spoke at a conference on sustainable development for the Great Plains region of North America. About 120 people from Canada and the United States came to the conference to share their ideas.
Nola-Kate Seymour, of the International Institute for Sustainable Development which organized the event, said small farmers are a big part of sustainable development because they care about the land and livestock, and they want to pass it on to future generations.
“That sense of stewardship, that sense of bonding, leads to a different kind of orientation to making money,” Seymour said.
“What I fear is the kind of farming that’s there to make money first and not to feed people and not to care about the land and the life of the land.”
Barry Routledge, who farms near Lenore, Man., said the average prairie farmer has been applying the principles of sustainable development for a long time through
innovation.
“He’s always constantly changing his management practices, his farming practices, the products that he grows. It is sustainable development, because if he doesn’t develop these things, the world marketplace passes him by.”
The International Institute for Sustainable Development has been studying the Great Plains region for three years. Two similar conferences have been held in Minnesota and Nebraska.
Seymour said major groups that influence policy will use the recommendations from the conference.
