Dutch farmer Eduard Bomers, soon to be a Canadian farmer, is starting this month on the trek of a lifetime.
Sometime around March 8, the 46-year-old former Dutch dairy farmer will pick up his Fendt tractor and a trailer from a boat in Halifax harbour and begin the long tractor drive from there to his new 1,600 acre grain farm at Sheho, west of Yorkton, Sask.
The equipment is being shipped from Holland.
It will be a journey that he expects will take two weeks or more, travelling more than 3,000 kilometres and into four time zones.
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“This is a big country,” he said.
“It will all depend on the weather. This has never been done before.”
Not since Nick Parsons drove his combine from British Columbia to Ottawa 12 years ago to call for farm aid has a cross-country farm equipment trek like this happened.
Bomers will see his new country in a way most haven’t.
“It will be a long drive,” he said. “I will learn.”
He plans to have his first crop of wheat, canola and oats in the ground this spring.
Bomers decided to move to Canada several years ago when he figured if he was going to leave dairy farming and Holland, he would have to do it soon.
“The reason I stopped dairy and started with grain is dairy is the same as if you have children,” said the single farmer. “It is 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. I wanted more of life and I have no family, so I decided if I’m going to do it, I have to do it before I get too old.”
He knew some Dutch farmers on the Prairies and visited Alberta in 2008.
“It’s expensive there,” he said. “There are too many people, too many Dutch people. I don’t hate Dutch people, but they have money and they always make everything expensive.”
So he set his sights on buying a Saskatchewan farm and while trying to sell his Netherlands operation at Eesveen last year, he worked on a Saskatchewan grain farm “for the experience.”
The European farm finally sold, he found a farm for sale at Sheho after talking to some Saskatchewan Dutch farmers, and returned to Holland, where he bought a tractor and trailer to ship his possessions to Canada.
Then the delays began.
He returned to Canada to wait and begin buying farm equipment. He took possession of the farm in early February.
Twice the tractor and trailer didn’t make it aboard the ship and then there were delays docking at Liverpool, England.
Finally in late February, he received word the farm equipment and a friend were on the boat and with his newly acquired Canadian driver’s licence, he started to make plans to drive a pick-up from his Saskatchewan farm to Halifax for the scheduled March 8 arrival.
Then he and friend Jacob plan to head west, Jacob driving the truck.
“I look forward to this, to farming,” he said. “And I couldn’t do the drive without help from my friend.”
For the moment, Bomers has status as a “permanent resident” in Canada, he said.
Does he plan to become a citizen?
“I don’t know, not at this moment, but you never know,” he said. “I might find a girl and it changes.”
