WINNIPEG – John Dueck couldn’t take the heat on his old farm – literally.
So he moved from the tropical climes of Belize to Arborg, Man., where he had relatives, and began working as a hired hand.
For about 10 years, he has been farming on his own, taking care of 125 Simmental cows and feeding about 1,000 hogs per year.
Dueck said it didn’t take long to adapt. “A cow is a cow,” he said. But mastering English has not been as easy.
“That’s a challenge for me, to keep up with everything, because in reading and writing, it’s not that simple for me.”
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He said in the past decade, he has watched farms get bigger and bigger. “A hundred cows when I started off was a very big farmer, and now that’s about average in this area.”
Dueck said he enjoys talking to other farmers to find out what’s new in the field. And he talked to quite a few: He was one of the first in the area to put up low-cost, open BioTech hog shelters.
Dueck said he’d like to expand his cattle herd. He needs to replace an aging tractor, and he’d like to have his own haybine. But after buying a quarter-section a couple of years ago, “I have to first pay those bills before I go on.”
Low hog prices a couple of years ago and low cattle prices today have set back his plans somewhat. “You can’t increase the way you would like to, or you can’t pay bills quite the way you would like to,” he said.
“But I would say, overall, it’s gone pretty good.”
