Young farmer Kalissa Regier has taken on quite a task.
She hopes to write a curriculum that would introduce agricultural content into Saskatchewan high schools and then sell it to school boards or the agriculture ministry.
“In Canada, people see vast tracts of land and they are taken for granted,” said the newly elected youth president of the National Farmers Union.
“I do some speaking in schools and a lot of people are really ill-educated about farming. My idea is to write a curriculum that would be used over five or six weeks in high school classes.”
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She said it would combine the biology, production, political and social issues sides of modern farming.
Regier, 30, who works with her parents on a 1,400-acre farm near Laird, Sask., talked about the school education campaign after she helped launch a Campaign for New Farmers at the recent NFU convention in Ottawa.
It will provide information on farm realities, opportunities in the business and mentoring for young people interested in becoming farmers but without the background that would come from growing up on the farm.
The 2006 census showed the number of farmers younger than 35 has been falling sharply, but Regier said governments paid no attention, changed no policies and appeared to pay no notice.
“It was business as usual,” she said.
As a result, young NFU members got together to talk about the issue and what could be done.
The result was the Campaign for New Farmers that will concentrate on raising awareness, education in schools and policy analysis about how the sector can become more new-entrant friendly.
The current set of agricultural policies and practices is not working, Regier told delegates.
On the panel with her at the campaign launch was Nathan Macklin, who talked about planning to take over his parent’s farm in an isolated area of Alberta’s Peace River country, an hour from the closest major centre, Grande Prairie.
The family’s plan was for Macklin to gradually buy the 1,600-acre farm and take over control from his father Art, a former NFU president. The plan was thrown into disarray when his father was diagnosed with cancer last winter.
“You can make plans,” Macklin said. “And you can be broadsided by other things.”
Part of his problem is finding someone to replace his father because the farm is too big for one person.
“It is difficult to find labour willing to live in the middle of nowhere.”
Hillary Moore from the Ottawa area said older farmers played an important role in teaching a city girl how to be a farmer. She now is part of a community supported agriculture operation that provides produce to local consumers.
“We need a format to bridge the gap between people with experience and knowledge and people who need it,” she told convention delegates.
“If you see people in your town who seem a bit green, take them under your wing.”
