Binscarth, Man. – When a farm has been in the same family for 126 years, there are signs of each generation’s unique footprint. And back in the early 2000s, it was Doug and Carol Turnbull’s moment to alter the history of their farm in western Manitoba.
The husband and wife team chose to plow down their grain land and replace it with forage.
“It was not normal at the time. We’ve got pretty good grain land here … and we’re sowing it down to grass,” said Doug.
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The Turnbulls built up their cattle herd and adopted holistic management practices, including swath grazing throughout much of the winter.
The changes at the Turnbull farm were noticed in the community, said Carol, during an interview in their farm house a kilometre off the Yellowhead Highway.
“We’re swath grazing out by the highway. You can’t do that in Manitoba (in the winter). You’ve got to have them in the pens,” she said. “You’d see vehicles slow down.”
“Everybody thought we were nuts,” Doug added.
The successful transition for the farm was noted at this year’s Red River Exhibition Association when Doug, Carol, and their two sons, Ryan, 17, and Cody, 15, were named the 2009 farm family of the year.
It was an acknowledgement that a family farm with 1,200 acres of forage can be viable, the couple says.
“The reality is if you’re still farming, you deserve the award. Anybody. It doesn’t matter what kind of farmer,” said Carol, who grew up in Etzikom, Alta., and met Doug when they were at Olds College in the mid-1980s. He was taking agricultural mechanics and she was studying fashion merchandising.
The couple bought the farm near Binscarth from Doug’s mom. Doug’s father, who passed away in 1983, had already put his own stamp on the farm in the 1970s.
He sold the cattle and turned the farm into a straight grain operation.
Carol was initially reluctant to restart a cow-calf operation, having seen how tied down her own family was with its mixed operation.
She embraced the idea after considering the age of machinery and the cost of replacing it.
“You’ve got to try something else,” said Carol.
Doug and Carol sold off their machinery and shifted focus to forage and cattle.
The changes were evident during a tour of the property in the Turnbulls’ weathered Suburban, which has racked up 450,000 kilometres driving teenagers to ski races and volleyball tournaments across Manitoba.
Their land is covered with a mix of grasses and legumes, including meadow brome, alfalfa, cicer milkvetch and clover.Electric fencing divides their forage acres into 13 fenced paddocks, which can be subdivided into smaller pens using polywire.
Grazing on the forage are the Turnbulls’s cattle, mostly Angus, and other herds for which they provide custom grazing services. The Turnbulls normally have 300 cattle over the summer and 270 year round.
“I use them (cattle) as a tool to manage my grass, because I’m really a forage producer,” Doug noted.
Learning what kind of forage to grow, how to grow it and how to manage the cattle on their land all year round has been an ongoing experiment for the Turnbulls.
The learning process began about a decade ago when Doug attended a grazing school in Brandon and later took a ranching for profit course.
“That really opened up a new way of thinking, compared to what conventional guys were doing,” Doug noted.
Following that, Doug and Carol took a holistic management course, which led to the formation of a local club.
That club, which meets once a month, has allowed the Turnbulls to develop a network of producers facing similar challenges and wanting to improve their management skills.
Shirley Dunn, a member of the club, said the Turnbulls’s enthusiasm for farming and holistic management is a big reason the group is successful.
“They just have a passion for the land and for agriculture, which clearly shines through,” said Dunn, who farms north of Russell.
“It’s really a passion for people, community and farming.”
Furthermore, Dunn said the Turnbulls embrace new ideas and genuinely want to make a difference for their farmland in the long run.
“They have a desire to leave it better than they came to it,” she said.
