TEULON, Man. – Call them innovators, call them diversified, call them thoughtful risk takers. Just don’t call them stagnant.
Herb and Helen Kletke and their son Glenn have built a small mixed farm in Manitoba’s southern Interlake region into a multi-faceted business, cleaning grain and forage seeds, treating canola, growing crops and selling chemicals. It’s all set up in a cluster of red warehouses, sheds, an office building and more than 100 storage bins in their farmyard.
Their story dates back to 1944 when Herb’s father moved from southern Manitoba to buy 240 acres of land south of Teulon, and began farming it with his two sons.
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Herb and Helen married in 1956 and bought the then-480 acre farm three years later. They cropped the land and raised cattle, hogs and chickens.
While struggling to market oats in Ontario in 1967, Herb realized he needed to cut costs by doing more tasks himself. So he started a business cleaning oats, at first for himself and soon for others.
“That year it just mushroomed,” said Herb.
Today, the family cleans wheat and barley.
“Then Herb got thinking he was paying too much for chemicals,” said Glenn. “So in 1972, he started a chemical business.”
He bought wholesale and retailed to other farmers.
For a few years the Kletkes were in the bird feed business, but quit because of insufficient profits.
“Then we went along and were quite content for a while,” Helen said.
In the late 1970s, they started treating canola with insecticides and fungicides.
Their next big innovation came in 1986, when a group of farmers formed a forage seed company in Neepawa, Man., and asked the Kletkes to clean the seed.
“And that has just grown,” said Helen.
“We started cleaning sweet clover and now we clean all the commodities,” added Glenn.
Five years ago they got their first big commercial contract to treat canola for Advanta Seeds.
Along the way, they have kept abreast of technology, buying top line equipment in the United States and Germany.
In 1998 Glenn bought a bag palletizer, which bags the seed, closes the bags and stacks them on pallets. It can process 4,000 bags in nine hours, requiring the work of four people instead of six.
Glenn said they are slowly automating the bagging line because labor is hard to come by.
The Kletkes are also starting to use global positioning system technology, although so far they only use it to collect field data.
Glenn mentions their crops almost as an afterthought: 1,700 acres of wheat, barley, canola and beans, most of it for seed.
The Kletkes won’t say exactly how well they do financially, only that input costs keep rising for them as for all farmers. Unlike others, they see lots of opportunities for farming. Herb said they have kept innovating to survive and grow.
“I wouldn’t say we’re really risk takers,” said Helen.
“Oh, yes we are,” countered Glenn, a boyish 38. He now lives on the farm while Herb and Helen have a home in Teulon.
“We don’t just jump into anything,” she said.
“Between the three of us we make a decision.”
Herb quietly adds, “we back each other.”
“There’s nothing like ‘my dad did it that way and we’ll do it that way,’ ” Helen said.
“We never think that way.”
They have a mix of business that keeps them busy most of the year. Glenn said July is the only slow month.
The Kletkes said they work well as a three-member team.
They talk like a family used to working closely, finishing each other’s sentences.
“We all have our own areas. That’s why it works well,” said Helen, an energetic 67-year-old. She is in the office six days a week, taking care of the books and selling seed.
“Well, you’re the financier, too,” said Herb, who makes the field crop decisions. He’s also the main salesperson. Glenn handles seed treatment and grain cleaning.
They employ six or seven workers, including office help.
Occasionally, they take time off.
“He likes to go bow hunting,” Helen said of Glenn.
“I have a little Piper PA12 – good for fishing and hunting,” Glenn said.
He uses the three-seater plane to fly to Berens River. Herb is a keen participant in those trips, but Helen would rather stay home to knit, crochet and read.
She said the farm is really where she gets her kicks. And she has no plans to change.
“This is my life. But we enjoy it, too. There are people who ask Herb and me, ‘When are you two old people going to retire?’ We didn’t think retirement was all it’s cracked up to be.”
