When federal and provincial governments unveiled their individualized slates of Growing Forward 2 offerings earlier this year, most farmers were busy in their fields. Now, with harvest more or less complete, more and more growers are showing interest in taking advantage of the numerous farm management and marketing courses on tap.
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Ron Bonnett says farm education has been positioned as one of the federal government’s priorities, although when it comes to the delivery, each province is doing it in a different way.
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“Here in Ontario, the Agricultural Management Institute (AMI) and the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association are working to put some of the management courses together. Out west, it’s being delivered at the provincial level,” says Bonnett.
Bonnett had already noted rising interest in farm business management while sitting at the AMI board of directors years ago.
“With all the high capital costs of getting into farming, particularly with a young family wanting to come in, you really have to have a strong business plan in place before you’re going to go ahead,” Bonnett says. “I think there’s quite a bit of interest on the government’s side because they see it as a tool that will help farmers manage some of their risk, and on the farmers’ side, you’re seeing quite a bit more interest, just out of necessity.”
The new five-year GF2 program started in April, and Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food spokeswoman Tanya Marissen says capacity for education programs is likely to build for the winter months.
Uptake has been a bit slow in the first funding year, says Debbie Loiselle, manager at Allied Associates Chartered Accountants. GF2 funding began April 1, 2013, she explains, but the details were not released until June.
Once the information became available, however, farmers showed immediate interest, Loiselle says. Quite a few Allied clients have registered for Growing Your Farm Profits workshops and others have submitted applications for the Capacity Building Funding Assistance grants for business planning and/or skills development.
Workshops are no longer mandatory to access the funding, and there will be some urgency to complete the application work by the required deadline of January 15, 2014 for the first year of funding, Loiselle says.
“For the most part, I think producers are enthusiastic about the opportunity to cost share activities that will allow them to plan for the future success of their operation,” Loiselle says.
Out west, participation levels are more mixed.
In Manitoba, some programs have just started and it’s too early to gauge farmer interest, says Manitoba Agriculture spokeswoman Diane Coble-Kendall.
“The rollout has been slow for GF2 and many programs are being designed after the start date,” adds Doug Chorney, president of Keystone Agricultural Producers. “Since most of us farmers are busy all summer, I doubt anyone has had a chance to even contemplate options for education.”
Saskatchewan producer interest has climbed since the first Growing Forward program was announced, and it’s expected to keep growing, according to a government official. The official says GF2 is too new to provide numbers, but for the original program, with $14 million in funding to producers, there were more than 4,100 applicants and almost 5,000 Farm Development Plans were completed.
Now, the province’s GF2 farm management offerings are under eight different concepts, including marketing.
“With the changes to the Canadian Wheat Board and the environment farmers are in now from a grain-marketing perspective, there’s a lot of interest and need for people to learn about what grain marketing is really going to entail on their farm,” says Saskatchewan business management specialist Ron Monette. Included in course material is how to create a marketing plan, and using futures markets.
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Succession planning is another area farmers are keen on and that may attract even more interest. Monette says it’s an area containing numerous issues that need understanding.
“Most people think in terms of what my business structure needs to be: Who’s going to have what shares? It’s so much more complicated than that,” Monette says. “You need to deal with family dynamics, meetings, fairness issues, and then all the legal aspects and risk management processes.”
Monette has found a lot of farmers will take a course in generally understanding farm succession first, which then spurs them on into proceeding through the formal process of developing an actual succession plan.
Alberta Agriculture has unveiled a number of education and training initiatives that include the Business Management Skills Development Program, for which there’s been good interest to date but funding remains for this fiscal year; the Traceability Training Program, which Alberta Ag expects will be fully subscribed; the Biosecurity Delivery Agent Program, which is almost fully subscribed for this year; the Food Safety Systems Delivery Agent Program, which opened at the end of July and has received five applications, all from non-profit organizations, and whose five proposed projects would deliver courses and workshops to approximately 350 producers, 90 processors and 40 meat inspectors; and the Livestock Welfare Delivery Agent Program, whose budget has been already two-thirds allocated.
“I would expect we’re going to see these programs fully utilized and I would encourage producers to have a look and see what they can make work,” says Humphrey Banack, first vice-president of the Alberta Federation of Agriculture. “Now is the time to look at how we can build for next year. And some of these programs will help us do that.”
Banack says with farm businesses expanding, it has become essential for farmers to have some kind of background in business education in particular.
“We’re a $1.8 million a year in annual sales business,” he says of the 5,000-acre farm he works with his wife, son and brother. “To manage that with little outside education and learning by the seat of your pants is a risky business. (It’s important) being able to recognize the risks and being able to use a process to manage those risks. Agriculture has turned into a real big business, and it’s very important to have that business acumen about you.”
But accessing these programs will involve some Internet savvy, filling forms and some heavy reading. With cutbacks to Alberta Agriculture support staff, farmers will have to take the initiative, Banack says.
Says Banack: “They’re not coming to you to say, ‘Here’s programs for you.’ You have to be willing to go out and look for them.”
