STRATHMORE, Alta. Ñ Brent McBean is a young farm activist with a strong view of the need for young farmers to become involved in the politics and sustenance of their industry.
“I think it should be like the Swiss military and its requirement that everyone spend a few years in service,” the 40 year old said at his kitchen table.
“If you love the industry, every farmer has some obligation to be involved for a time beyond the farm. If they are not prepared to give a bit, they should ask themselves a few questions.”
Read Also
Food can play a flavourful role in fun summer activities
Recipes – popsicles are made with lactose-free milk and yogurt so are perfect for those who can’t tolerate milk, while everyoneelse will also enjoy them
But McBean also is quick to point out some of the costs of that involvement.
As a young, energetic and articulate farmer, he has been drawn into work as a director for the Wild Rose Agricultural Producers, on the grading committee of the Canada Grains Council, a leader of the Canadian Young Farmers’ Federation and work with the Canadian Wheat Board.
Even though he is pulling back from many of those activities, McBean is entertaining an offer to become involved in canola industry politics and has had overtures about doing agricultural outreach and education at the Calgary Stampede or in schools.
“It is important that you be open to these opportunities and I have benefited,” said McBean, as wife Brenda read to five-year-old Connor nearby.
“But at the same time, I’m away a lot. I owe time to my family. I’m running the farm and it has become a lot bigger and more complicated job. And I have not been around to be part of the community, to be at the rink, to help local organizations.”
He reflects the dilemma of many young farmers whose arrival on the scene leads to pressure from organizations with greying membership that want to inject new blood, new energy and new ideas.
One commitment leads to invitations for others.
“There is a pressure to be involved, but it also is possible to say no and step back,” he said. “I have said being the new young guy to show up feels like being a gopher snared and everyone is so happy to have a new gopher in town.”
McBean’s operation doesn’t leave much time for off-farm involvement, despite help from Brenda and father Lloyd. He operates 4,400 acres east of Calgary with a 200-head cow-calf and backgrounding operation. There is also a combination of dryland farming with 600 irrigated acres.
He crops wheat, malting barley, canola and some field peas. McBean has a growing relationship with a malt company for which he takes risks with experimental varieties and volunteered to be one of the first farmer-suppliers to embrace the on-farm safety protocols.
His co-operation gives him access to company trust, possible future value-added opportunities and an on-farm visit from the president of Asian beer brewing giant Tsing Tao.
McBean is pulling back from some of his involvements in the young farmers’ forum and WRAP and is not always happy with the profile his public involvement has given him, including the image as a young, optimistic innovative farmer often called by reporters for comment.
“I never did this for publicity and I’ve never wanted to be a big shot,” he said. “Sometimes being asked to speak for the industry leads others to resent you if you don’t exactly represent their situation. I have never liked that.”
At the same time, he does believe young farmers have an obligation to support their industry’s political structures, just as industry veterans who run the organizations have an obligation to reach out to the young, “making policy not just for those who have been there, but those who are there now.”
And for all the pressures, McBean says he has benefitted from his willingness to become involved in industry work beyond the farm.
Learning the politics of the industry gave him a sense of “the game, how to play it, who makes the rules and what they are.”
Travel has given him a sense of different ideas, solutions and structures across Canada and elsewhere in the world, making him a better manager.
“There definitely has been some method to my madness,” he said. “It has branded me as someone people recognize, someone out there.”
He is pulling back, maybe to spend more time in his local community and more time with his family and his children, Connor and Aiden, 2.
But he is not ruling out other off-farm adventures.
“It really depends what comes up, what opportunities there are. There are lots of other things I want to learn and that is a great way to do it.”
