CHAMBERLAIN, Sask. – If optimism had value as equity, Kelvin and Shelley Meadows would be rolling in it.
On their farm perched on the lip of the Qu’Appelle River Valley, an excellent harvest of pumpkins sits in the field as a steady stream of buyers drive in. An experiment with cantaloupes could lead to commercial production next year.
Several years ago, the Meadowses were recognized as Saskatchewan’s outstanding young farmers.
They seem to be the epitome of the government and money lender view that today’s grain sector income woes could be overcome through business management skills, diversification, expansion and some creative thinking by farmers stuck in the grains and oilseeds rut.
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“We certainly are not afraid to experiment,” said Kelvin.
“We do what we have to do to make it. I am an optimist.”
But all the bustle and innovation mask a more troubling story.
The Meadows are struggling, despite all their energy, innovation and management.
“A couple of crops have been good to us, including pumpkins, but our goal this year is to break even,” he said.
They are losing money on their 438 acres of grain. After discovering that trying to farm 2,300 acres, some with intensive crops, led to 100 hour weeks, they have scaled back this year to 1,800 acres.
The goal is to have fewer than 1,000 acres of intensive crops, aided by irrigation, including carrots and other high value crops. The dream is to gross $500 per acre.
But Kelvin and Shelley also have an “exit strategy” in case it does not work out.
“We have learned that diversification does not guarantee success,” said the 38-year-old Kelvin, who moved onto his wife’s family’s land and into farming seven years ago.
“It only guarantees higher costs.”
And not all their diversification gambles have worked. Last year, the pumpkin crop was rendered useless by an early cold spell. Government programs have been less than helpful because their crop often is too new to have a track record that can be insured or factored into payment schedules.
The Meadows are the face of a new generation of prairie farmers trying to make a living by farming differently.
But they also illustrate a broader theme on the Prairies – despite the bureaucratic and statistical view that farming is a healthy industry with trouble spots in some sectors, many farmers are struggling despite efforts to grow, diversify and manage smarter.
This year, cattle and hogs are boosting overall farm income numbers.
Still, diversification into livestock is a costly venture and the cattle industry is expected soon to enter its money-losing phase.
“Diversification into livestock is risky and not available to everyone,” said Rapid City, Man., farmer and farm activist Debbie Kooting, who is planning a move into hogs on her grain farm.
Yet government is resisting calls for more subsidies, supported by the view of lenders like Farm Credit Canada chief operating officer Janet Wightman that despite low grain prices and some problem farms, agriculture is prospering.
“Our portfolio has never been healthier,” she said.
Increasingly, policy makers are saying the main problem is a sector of farmers chronically in trouble because they depend on under-valued grains, are too small to take advantage of economies of scale and too under-financed to expand or diversify.
There is increasing talk of trying to provide the “tools” necessary to deal with this group, including funds for retraining or exiting.
“You have a large group of people, tens of thousands, caught in the middle ground,” said a senior government official unwilling to speak on the record.
“They can’t go back and they can’t go forward. Until their situation changes, the agenda will continue to be captured by their problems and that is not good for the industry as a whole.”
