HOLLAND, Man. – To Dan De Ruyck’s way of thinking, farming is as much about raising good children as it is about growing good food. It’s keeping them on the farm after they’ve grown up that’s the problem.
His four children, ranging in age from 14 to 25, have all benefited from the fresh air and connection to nature that are part of the family’s 1,000 acre beef and organic grain farm on the picturesque Manitoba escarpment that they bought in 1993.
The De Ruycks work together as a three generation family, including his father, Gerry, and his mother, Marie, who farm 500 certified organic cultivated acres nearby. Dan’s wife, Fran, also works as a teacher’s aide.
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The two oldest children have moved out. Eric, the eldest, a heavy-duty mechanic, works in Brandon, while Holly is employed at a personal care home in nearby Notre Dame de Lourdes.
“The kids once in a while say they’d like to come back or have their family here, but they are making some pretty good money in town,” Dan De Ruyck said. “We’ve never put pressure on them, but we’ve always left the door open.”
There is a lot of talk about succession planning these days, but it all hinges on whether the kids like the lifestyle and can make a decent living if they stay, he said.
One strategy to help kids develop a love of farming is to give them a chance to participate directly, and not just as unpaid labour.
For this reason, De Ruyck encouraged his two remaining teenage daughters, Lisa and Katie, to raise 400 free-range broilers and cultivate a four acre root crop market garden.
The girls are given a percentage of the sales from the garden and the chickens.
The vegetables are marketed through the Fresh Option Organic Delivery service, as well as small, privately owned stores in Winnipeg, about 90 minutes away by car.
One of the best things about being a farmer and a parent is that there are plenty of opportunities for one-on-one time with the kids as the work gets done, he said.
But giving children their own projects to work on, instead of handing out cash allowances, helps them take an active interest in the farming operation as well as develop some business skills, he said.
The pasture-raised birds are processed by Pa-Pa’s poultry slaughtering facility in nearby Glenora and sold as whole roasting chickens for $2.50 a pound.
“They had to take care of the chickens. We helped them with the marketing. They plan on doing it again next year, so it will be up to them how they are going to do it.”
Keeping kids on the farm is largely dependent on whether a good living can be earned from the land, he said.
The conventional approach of being a price-taker, not a price-setter, with off-farm jobs to maintain cash flow, just doesn’t appeal much to the next generation, he said. That’s why De Ruyck has opted to pursue a number of direct marketing strategies.
“It’s a lifestyle choice. You’re your own boss and you set your own hours, but it boils down to finance. There has to be a half-decent wage at the end of the year.”
To capture more returns from their crops, the family processes its own grain, making flour and oatmeal and packaging it for retail.
Organic wheat is bringing $12 a bushel at the mill in Elie, but yields at 15 bu. to the acre last summer were low due to drought.
Marketing farm-raised produce is not difficult, he said, provided that prices are kept reasonable compared to California imports.
“People will buy locally so long as the prices aren’t too much higher than they are somewhere else. Price is still an issue for some people, depending on the customer base that you are working with.”
The De Ruyck family is active with the Harvest Moon Society Local Food Initiative, an 800 member marketing collective formed in 2002 that aims to connect urban and rural members for mutual benefit.
By pooling their production and hiring a full-time marketer, the group hopes to develop a functioning model for a system that could funnel more money back to the farmers. Some kinks need to be ironed out, but the group expects to begin selling products in 2008.
“We are starting to find more and more consumers want to know where their food is coming from and how it’s raised. Harvest Moon wants to also do farm tours to educate people so they get a better idea how things are done.”
By building a dialogue with the urban membership, the collective hopes to generate enough feedback to enable the farmers to fine-tune their production and ensure that the customers are getting what they want.
The De Ruycks’ 60 head of cattle, due to be certified organic next year, will be marketed through alternative channels such as the Manitoba Organic Marketing Association. The estimate of up to $2,000 per head in potential returns through direct marketing at retail prices is a strong motivator, he added.
“There’s money between the producing and retailing, so I think that’s something that producers need to be looking at,” De Ruyck said.
“Instead of me buying more land and spending that kind of capital to increase my income, I’m better off taking what I already have and expanding it that way. Whether that theory works, we’ll see.”
