KINCAID, Sask. – Unable to find enough good farm help in rural Saskatchewan, Paul Lacasse looked farther afield to South America.
In Paraguay, he found Enoir Treichel, who arrived last summer with his wife and preschooler to help Paul run his 11,000 acre farm and cow-calf operation near Kincaid.
Paul, a bachelor who operates the farm with his widowed mother Louisa, read about immigrant labourers in rural Manitoba.
The practice of employing immigrants is more entrenched there, because the province has eased the bureaucracy and the process of bringing workers to Canada.
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“(Manitoba) has embraced them; here we are lagging behind,” said the bilingual Lacasse, whose grandparents emigrated from France.
As he moved feed to livestock housed behind long, tidy rows of corrals, Lacasse explained how he tries to do things differently. Nearby, a steel-sided shed offers some refuge from the cool wind and a place where he and his hired men can remain close to the animals during calving.
“I look for opportunities. I try not to do things like the rest of the pack,” he said.
He bought cattle when prices were low after an outbreak of BSE and now has 400 cattle on feed and 200 cows calving out this spring.
He likes Red Angus and Baldy cows best, noting the flexibility they give him in breeding. They also make good mothers, have few calving troubles and produce low birth weight bulls.
The cattle are a good fit with some of his marginal land and they feed on some of the grains he grows. His goal is to create a fully integrated operation spread over 20,000 acres. Lacasse wants a larger herd to avoid having to buy calves each fall.
“The more diversified we are, the more opportunities we have for long-term
viability,” he said.
Current hype among grain and oilseed producers about energy markets is injecting some optimism into that side of farming, but grain alone generally offers a feast or famine option that does not appeal to him.
“When it’s good there, it’s quite short-lived,” he said.
On his farm, Lacasse does continuous cropping, growing barley, chickpeas, lentils, mustard, field peas and canola.
He combines classes in grain marketing and futures trading with visits to the seed cleaner to find out what’s being cleaned to help steer his choices.
“A lot of decision-making is based on that and trying to understand what is happening globally,” said Lacasse, whose role is increasingly shifting from the field to the office.
“I can pay one good man’s wages if I spend more time on management and make good decisions,” said Lacasse, who also makes time for community service as a councillor in his rural municipality.
His mother assists by keeping the books and cooking for the workers during busy times as she has since the farm’s early days with her late husband.
An organist at the local Catholic church since her teens, Louisa also maintains her own home and shares an expansive farmyard with a dog and more than a dozen cats. She helps set up housing for the farm workers and also provides sage advice to her son.
“She is the balancing power, the little voice that says we need to be careful,” said Lacasse.
He began farming full time in the 1980s while his sister Diana also has some cattle and land.
After her husband’s fatal car accident, Louisa raised their four young children and continued to run the farm with hired help. She was among the first female farmers to incorporate a farm operation.
“It’s not a family farm anymore, but a business,” said Louisa.
They agree that treating it like a business is critical.
“The farms of the future will think globally, as opposed to locally,” he predicted.
Farm labour in rural Saskatchewan is an ongoing challenge, with Alberta’s oil boom one province away.
“We can’t compete with the oil; the kids are gone in one month,” she said.
Lacasse turned to seasonal immigrant workers but found that short term and inefficient so switched to offering full-time employment. Bringing whole families works the best because they support one another through the new experience away from their homeland.
“Living alone, there’s no one to share things with,” said Lacasse. “There’s enough thrown at them.”
Treichel is one in a string of immigrant workers Lacasse has secured in recent years. Lacasse provides a house for Treichel’s family, while another worker Kevin Entz, formerly of the Pennant Hutterite colony, lives in the basement of Paul’s house.
Treichel’s English has steadily improved with weekly English classes.
Lacasse said the community has also been supportive of the newcomers, citing the number of new immigrants coming to jobs in Gravelbourg in recent years.
He finds the younger the age, the more easily they adapt and pick up English.
Treichel came with experience and farm skills from operating his family’s farm so there is little Lacasse needs to teach him. The work days can be long, especially during calving, seeding and harvest. The livestock operation ensures there is steady work for all throughout the year.
Treichel, who wants to remain in Canada, came hoping for a better life and improved wages. In Paraguay, monthly wages are as low as $300 on his family’s small farm, compared to the $2,000 he collects here.
Lacasse hopes government will simplify the processing of immigrants in future, shorten the time it takes to recruit and ease the shortage of labour on Saskatchewan’s farms.
