NOKOMIS, Sask. – Joanne Edwards was clearly born to be a dairy farmer.
In fact, she was almost born in her family’s dairy farm.
One November day 30 years ago, her pregnant mother, Fran, had just finished milking the family’s Jersey cows.
Things started to happen, and 30 minutes later Joanne was delivered at the hospital in the nearby town of Nokomis.
Sitting at their kitchen table one day last week, Joanne and Fran had a good laugh while telling the story.
“It’s like I was meant to be in the barn from the day I was born,” Joanne said with a chuckle.
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The mother and daughter have been running Bramville Jerseys together since Fran’s husband, Jim, died in October 2007.
Joanne said there was never any question they would carry on the business.
“I think maybe a lot of people thought we wouldn’t, but if they thought that, they didn’t know us very well,” she said. “We shared a determination to keep it going because we love it.”
Both share the milking and other routine duties, while Fran takes care of the calves and Joanne handles the tractor work.
Their farm is located on a site homesteaded by Jim’s family in 1904, a fact attested to by the Century Farm sign in the yard, courtesy of the provincial government.
Jim and Fran took over what was then a grain farm in 1969. That started to change when Fran got her first cow in 1970.
“I always had to milk the cow at home so I thought I needed a cow to milk here,” she recalls. “It grew from there. It wasn’t really planned, it just happened.”
The first cow was a Holstein, but within a few years it had turned into an all-Jersey operation, which raised a lot of eyebrows. The decision was made because Jerseys are easy to handle and produce less volume but more butterfat than other breeds.
After her memorable debut on the scene, Joanne quickly showed her affinity for the business. At the age of three she was showing calves at livestock shows.
She got involved in 4-H programs and continued to take part in dairy shows throughout her youth.
Through a Jersey Canada exchange program she spent two weeks on dairy farms in the Maritimes. Then at age 18 she spent a year in New Zealand on an international Jersey exchange program, spending time at nearly 40 farms.
“That’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she says, not only learning more about the dairy industry but also broadening her outlook on life.
“That was my version of going to university.”
After returning from New Zealand, Joanne worked for several years at dairy farms in Manitoba and southern Saskatchewan, before returning home in 2003.
The move was motivated by a number of desires: to be a decision maker rather than an employee, to work with Jerseys again and to return home.
“I came back with the intention of staying. I may have left the farm, but it never left me.”
Her return coincided with an expansion of the herd from 32 milking cows to about 50, along with the construction of a Cover-All building for additional housing.
As of now there are no plans to get any bigger. The farm’s facilities are being used to the maximum capacity and a big issue looming is the future of the 85-year-old dairy barn, which probably has about 10 years of life left.
Another hurdle will be if Fran ever decides to retire.
“I’ll need two years’ warning to prepare for that,” Joanne said.
Joanne remains committed to the show circuit, where she has been given the nickname Jersey Girl, and shows cattle at several shows a year in Saskatchewan and Alberta. Two of her prize-winning animals also went to the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto this year.
Travelling to shows is about the only time she can get away from the farm.
“That’s my holidays,” she said, adding with a laugh that she sometimes works harder at the shows than on the farm.
Joanne acknowledges it’s probably unusual for two women to be running a dairy farm on their own, but she’s unfazed by it.
“I don’t find it strange because Mom has always been in charge of the dairy,” she said. “It seems quite normal to me.”
Joanne is slight of build but tougher than she looks, she says. She’s good with running machinery and fixing things, and says physical strength is not a problem.
“Together we work around it,” she said.
Fran says she’s proud of her daughter, noting that her two sons and other daughter weren’t interested in taking over the farm. She always figured if anyone did, it would be Joanne.
“I’ll never leave,” says Joanne.
“I knew that when I came home and that’s why I came home.”
