Dan Menard’s protein production per acre stands out even in Alberta, a province known for leading edge livestock operations.
The surprise is that the protein comes not from beef, but from rainbow trout produced at Smoky Trout Farm, a 20 acre operation near Red Deer, owned by Menard, his wife, Joan, and son Max.
The Menards converted the previous owner’s chicken barn to accommodate
19 fish tanks.
“The densities and the amount of protein you can produce out of a small amount of water on a small land base is amazing,” said Dan Menard.
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The oilfield worker got involved nine years ago to supply the table fish market but has trouble keeping up with demand for fingerlings and stocking others’ ponds. The Menards also sell pond and aeration equipment.
“There’s no real local source for those products,” said Menard.
Some rural economy proponents use the word intensification to describe generating large revenue from a small landholding.
For prairie farmers, intensification is a major change in thinking but it is one way for the region to revive its rural economy and for individual producers to pay the bills.
The Prairies might be known as Canada’s breadbasket, efficiently churning out top quality grain from their expansive acres. But even with the recent biofuel boom reviving crop prices, it isn’t easy to turn a profit producing grain as a commodity.
Faced with low grain prices in recent years, many farmers concentrated on increasing yields and expanding their land base to spread out the fixed costs of production. This strategy succeeded for some, but was a risky venture highly dependent on global markets and the weather.
The strategy also led to dwindling population and services.
Saskatchewan Agrivision Corp., a group trying to revitalize the rural economy, shone a light on the problem a few years ago. It showed that an overreliance on grain-based agriculture put Saskatchewan last in provincial gross farm revenue per acre. Ontario and Quebec had five to six times more revenue per acre and even Alberta and Manitoba had rates 70-80 percent better thanks mainly to larger livestock industries.
The provinces with greater revenue per acre tended to have more vibrant, sustainable rural economies.
Increasing per acre revenue flow isn’t easy, but with a new mindset, it can be done.
David Sparling, executive director of the Institute of Agri-Food Policy Innovation in Guelph, Ont., said it could mean growing higher value crops or finding buyers who will pay more for the product.
“What you don’t want to be in is a commodity market. You want to be hooked up with value chains,” said Sparling.
Value chains refer to an alliance or network of several independent businesses within a supply chain going from primary production through processing and retail and on to the consumer.
The concept is that each link in the chain works to deliver what the customer wants and to fairly distribute the proceeds from the sale.
In the value chain, the focus moves from trying to efficiently produce an undifferentiated low value commodity toward producing a specific product for customers willing to pay more if it meets their requirements.
“Focus on product, not productivity,” said Sparling.
Another way to generate more value is to shorten the chain between farmer and customer, perhaps through direct sales where margins are higher, such as farmers’ markets or weekly farm to home deliveries of fresh produce or meat.
Sparling asked farmers to consider what can be done to capture more of the value from goods they produce. They must view the farm as a business and take a good look at the surrounding community and the opportunities it offers.
The trends of shopping and eating locally present opportunities for smaller producers. Success often comes by focusing on foods associated with the
region, such as saskatoon berries, Alberta beef or locally popular sausages.
It may be necessary for several small producers to come together in small businesses or co-operatives to assemble enough supply for buyers’ needs.
Prairie suppliers and global networks are fundamental to John and Kim Ritz’s saskatoon berry exporting business, Prairie Lane.
John Ritz also chooses to remain connected locally to consumers by operating a U-pick saskatoon farm at Petersfield, Man.
“That’s critical, we are in a people business,” he said. “The producer needs to get more connected to the customer.”
Ritz calls on a host of producers to provide him with enough berries for overseas shipments to Europe and Japan.
He started by planting five acres of berries as a retirement project but quickly found that others doing the same thing would saturate the local market and drive prices down.
He began looking for other opportunities, doing research and development and gathering data on the nutritional content of the berries he sold.
Prairie Lane also created a business plan with Meyers Norris Penny that included short and long range planning. Seeking this kind of expertise in business is important, he said.
In 2004, the Ritz family orchestrated a weekend food event to showcase the taste of saskatoons in Manitoba that attracted food journalists, producers, businesses and industry specialists and offered seminars and food demonstrations.
It was a new food experience for a world hungry for new flavours, created from a long-time prairie staple, he said.
The berries offered good taste, with healthful antioxidant properties similar to those in wild blueberries.
Ritz said it wasn’t easy to try something different and success did not come overnight. It took five years and many sleepless nights to develop solid, loyal markets.
“When it’s not cool, you don’t have a lot of support,” he said.
Seizing opportunities and creating a new mindset in agriculture are needed to move
the Prairies forward, said Al Scholz, executive director of Saskatchewan Agrivision Corp.
Agrivision’s plan for Saskatchewan includes livestock expansion to add value to feed grains and irrigation development to reduce weather risk and expand the range of high value crops that can be grown.
It has also compiled data on the best farming practices to provide models for others to try to improve their farm’s bottom line.
The study found that top farmers know their exact costs of production for each enterprise in the operation.
“If you know all your costs, then you can look at ways to reduce them,” Scholz said.
Running a farm as a business is key, with marketing among the most important tools.
“Farmers leave lots of money on the table because they’re not paying attention to the markets,” he said.
Few spend much time on marketing due to a lack of expertise or unwillingness. Most prefer to haul grain to the elevator and let someone else deal with the next steps, said Scholz.
“All top farmers have alliances with others up and down the supply chain and network to reduce risks,” said Scholz. “You cannot isolate yourself. There is no way one person can know or do everything.”
