WYNYARD, Sask. – For someone in their 40s, there’s at least one good
thing about being a farmer.
Everybody calls you young.
“That is an upside,” laughs Norm Hall, a 41-year-old grain and cattle
farmer who lives with his wife Fern and 12-year-old Travis just north
of Wynyard, Sask.
But at the end of the day, it’s not really a laughing matter.
In a lot of occupations, once you’re in your 40s, you’re the senior
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citizen in the workplace. Not so in farming.
In Hall’s part of the country, there aren’t many farmers younger than
him. He’s seen numbers indicating that in the two rural municipalities
around his farm, there are only 17 farmers under the age of 40, out of
roughly 600.
Hall has spent a lot of time in the past few years thinking about where
the next generation of farmers will come from.
As a member and former president of the Canadian Young Farmers Forum,
it’s an issue he has discussed at meetings with other farmers and
political leaders from across the country.
And with two sons and a daughter who don’t seem interested in farming,
it’s also an issue that hits close to home as he and Fern sometimes
wonder who will one day take over their farm.
“It’s scary,” he said.
Ironically, his oldest son Kevin wanted to stay home after high school
and keep farming, but Hall encouraged him to further his education
before deciding what to do with his life.
After discovering the world of $17 an hour pay rates, eight-hour days,
and five-day work weeks, life on the farm suddenly didn’t look so
attractive to the university engineering student.
“He phoned me one day and said, ‘Dad, I don’t think I’m coming back,’
” Hall recalled, joking that maybe the transfer can take place when
he’s 75 and his son is 55.
“Then he’ll have a pension he can farm on.”
Hall said it shouldn’t surprise anyone that people of his son’s
generation aren’t lining up to get into farming.
“The only way we can attract replacement farmers is with profit, and
there’s not a lot of that out there.”
For both Norm and Fern, there was never any doubt they would end up
living on a farm. Both grew up on farms – Norm at Wynyard and Fern at
Bankend – and both grew to love the lifestyle.
Norm wasted no time getting into farming. After serving what he
describes as a “10-year apprenticeship” growing up and working on his
parents’ farm, he rented land from a neighbour right after graduating
from school.
At that time, farmers had just come through the 1970s, a time of high
grain prices and boundless optimism, and farming was seen as a viable,
even desirable, career choice.
Things have changed, with more young people seeking their fortunes in
the city. Hall said he knows of farmers who have told their children
that if they leave Saskatchewan after high school, they’ll pay their
room and board; if they stay in the province they won’t.
“It’s a bad attitude,” he said.
“We have tremendous opportunities and we have to take them and seize
them.”
As is the case with so many farms these days, the Halls rely on
off-farm income to make a go of it. Fern works at the credit union in
Wynyard, while Norm has had a variety of jobs, working in a shop in
town, cleaning corrals, hauling manure and serving as a Saskatchewan
Wheat Pool delegate.
Some farmers say the increasing reliance on off-farm income is by
definition a bad thing, but the Halls have a different take on things.
For most straight grain farmers, farming is not really a year-round
job, they say, and so they shouldn’t expect to be able to survive
solely on their income from selling grain.
“How many people have jobs that last six months?” Norm said. “People in
the city don’t expect to work all summer and take the winter off.”
Fern added that even when she was growing up, farmers were more
self-sufficient, growing vegetables, raising chickens and pigs, and
milling their own wheat to make bread.
Nowadays most farmers buy all their food at the grocery store. They
also demand more consumer goods than did their parents, whether it’s
home entertainment, vehicles or vacations, and supporting that requires
a second income.
“It’s a lifestyle choice,” she said. “How many young people want to
live like their parents did? It would be nice to stay home and work on
the farm, but …”
Norm said the lack of young people getting into farming isn’t good for
agriculture in general.
Young people bring enthusiasm and fresh ideas and are always looking
for new ways of doing things, whether it’s direct seeding, new ways of
shipping grain or new farm policies.
Older, well-established farmers understandably tend to be more
interested in maintaining things the way they have been, especially if
they’re looking at retiring in five or 10 years.
“That holds back agriculture as a whole,” he said. “We need a mix of
young and old. The right balance is a powerful combination.”
