In all of Canada’s history, will this be the most important winter ever for scoping out what you’ll need your farm to look like in five and in 20 years?
I’m always saying that the thing consumers don’t know about farming is that it’s a life of decision- making.
When you factor in the value of land, machinery and farm commodities, farmers make bigger decisions every year than most non-farmers make in their lifetimes.
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I’m also always saying that the real driving force in agriculture isn’t bio-engineering, electronics or any other science, it’s the individual farmer making decisions one decision at a time.
I say these things because I believe them. I believe them completely, and I think you do too.
The world gets fed not by farms, but by farmers. Without farmers in charge, and without farmers making the incredible number and the quality of decisions they make, the world as we know it simply could not exist.
I believe this implicitly, and as I say, I believe you do too.
But I also wonder if we aren’t at a point where it can feel impossible to make the most important decisions of all.
Here’s the question: What do you intend your farm to look like in five years?
In fact, let’s make it two questions. Let’s add: And what do you intend it to look like in 20 years?
The pace of farm change over the last decade has been breathtaking. In the past, we would have known this because of a rapid increase in the number of acres farmed by each farmer. And, indeed, we have seen a substantial uptick in acreage of many farms since 2010.
But it hasn’t been nearly as big an uptick as farmers wanted or were prepared to take on.
Instead, in 2022, if you want to look for evidence of the pace of change, you have to look beyond farm size and even beyond gross sales to what is really most important, the nature of the farmer.
I’ve already used the word “breathtaking” so I’d have to stretch beyond the breaking point to describe how the professionalization of farming has revolutionized this industry.
Now, this professionalization must guide our farms through the challenge of the next quarter century.
How will growth be possible?
Even if more land does come onto the market, what kind of financial resources and business acumen will it take to farm in that world, and what enterprises and what income streams will it take not just to survive, but to thrive?
At Guide we’ll be doing some serious writing about this over the next several months.
There is something we already know, however. The future will be decided by farmers ready to make smart, quick, sometimes even aggressive decisions.
You can sense it already. More professional farmers will emerge from this winter knowing where they want to go, and I can’t wait to see it.
Are we getting it right? Let me know at [email protected].
