HAYTER, Alta. – At first glance David Blume’s farm looks like any other
prairie farm. An established shelterbelt protects the farmyard from
winter wind. A little farther to the south, rows of young spruce trees
are planted in anticipation of a new farm house one day.
Oil wells dot the stubble fields in the distance. An oilfield service
truck drives down the grid road, bits of gravel and snow blowing up
behind.
Open the door to the metal-sided farm shop and the similarities stop.
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Inside is a farmers’ grocery store.
Stacked on the long rows of shelves are filters, wrenches, tow ropes,
barrels of chains, hoses, coveralls, boots, bolts, spools of cable and
stacks of magazines. Parked like bookends between the rows of shelves
are two large green John Deere 8877 tractors with yellow Degelman
snowplows.
Welcome to Country Services, a combination farm workshop, oilfield and
farm supply store, snowplow and towing company, reading room and office.
In 1995 Blume scanned the horizon in one of the province’s most dense
oil-producing areas near the Saskatchewan border and thought he might
be able to tap into the local agriculture and oilfield supply business.
“We saw a need for it in the community and expanded,” said Blume from
his desk in the corner of the farm shop.
With hundreds of oil wells drilled every year in eastern Alberta, Blume
didn’t see why companies needed to buy their supplies in Edmonton or
Calgary.
He is the only independent dealer for Shaw Enterprises, a construction
and industrial equipment supply company. Through the dealership he
supplies local companies with wire rope, ripper teeth and custom
cutting edges. He has also negotiated a contract to supply spools of
heavy cable used on service rigs and winch trucks.
If a part breaks in the oilfield, a foreman can pick through the
$400,000 of inventory in the shop or Blume will make a call to his
outlying suppliers.
This year he won the bid to supply all the grader blades to the nearby
municipality of Provost, beating out several larger competitors.
“I have the luxury of no middle- men in my business.”
With only a farm shop, telephone, a shop full of supplies and stacks of
parts and supply books, Blume’s customers have access to the same
products at lower cost.
He said he always keeps the “what ifs” in mind when making business
decisions.
If it doesn’t rain this spring he will plant low input crops like
forages. If it rains, he will switch to high input crops like canola.
If farm commodity prices stay low, he can concentrate on his oil supply
business.
Working as an oilfield supplier has also helped strengthen his
relationship with oil companies. For years farmers have struggled with
how to deal with oil companies drilling holes, flaring wells and
crossing their land.
With close to 100 oil wells on his land, Blume has figured out how
farmers and oil companies can co-exist.
Blume’s ability to see a holistic view comes from his appetite for
information. Stacked neatly in his farm shop, along side the work
boots, are shelves of magazines.
Titles like Oilfield Weekly, Success, and Profit are stacked beside
Princess Auto magazines, Country Guide, Western Producer, Financial
Post, Alberta Report, Canadian Geographic and National Geographic.
Blume estimates he spends five to six hours a day reading.
“If it’s in the written form, I’ll pick it up and read it.”
Reading allows him to see his farm, business and family in an
interconnected circle.
“The wider you are read, the more things you do and the more
opportunity there are for you to do,” said Blume, father of 11 children
ranging from three to 25.
When a business idea comes to Blume, he often jots it down.About
one-quarter of his business ideas have turned into real businesses.
Twenty years ago he had the idea of buying corn in Taber by the bushel
and selling it in Provost by the cob. He also jotted down the idea of
buying oats by the semi-truck load in Provost, bagging them and selling
the cleaned oats to horse owners in southern British Columbia.
While the idea of buying bulk and selling by the piece is common
practice now, it was an idea in his notebook.
