I love farming and I love the
challenges, but I have no romantic
notions about it. It is a business
a big business. Steve Vandervalk
Like any farmer his age, Steve Vandervalk already knows a thing or two about steep learning curves. When we meet in mid-fall, he is renovating an older farmhouse that s perched above Willow Creek where it spills out of the Alberta foothills.
After meandering past his building project at Claresholm, about an hour and a half due south of Calgary, Willow Creek threads its way across open prairie farmland until it joins up with the Oldman River not far from the town of Fort Macleod, near where Steve farms with his brother Brian.
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This project was initially supposed to cost $10,000. Now, the bill is more like $80,000. Even then, Steve will end up with a nice, smaller split-level house, which will be fine for him and his fiance after they re married in 2010, but it may not be big enough for a family down the road.
In hindsight, it might have been wiser to build a new home from scratch.
But Steve isn t beating himself up about it, because he still believes that he got the main idea right. From a business standpoint, he wanted his home on land separate from the main farm.
I could have built a $300,000 or $400,000 house on the farm where my dad lives, but it wouldn t have had the same value as this, says Steve, 32. You don t need a farmstead with two houses you re not going to get your money back. This way I have a comfortable home on this land next to the creek. And my brother has also done the same, by building his house away from the farm.
The renovation project, he tells me, isn t about lifestyle. It s about business. Value, in Steve s lexicon, comes with a number that has a dollar sign in front of it.
That doesn t mean he s cold. It s obvious from the quality of the work on the farmhouse that he wants this to be a real home. But it does mean that, again like most of his generation, Steve is very clear-sighted.
Older generations of farmers have recognized that clear-sightedness and it s one of the reasons they ve been encouraging younger farmers to run for office on farm boards and associations.
Unlike many of his peers, Steve thinks there s a good business reason for taking their advice.
I love farming and I love the challenges, but I have no romantic notions about it, says Steve. It is a business a big business. If you are looking at replacing machinery, a million dollars doesn t go very far. So you have to be looking at a lot of details a lot of little things to see where you can be efficient and get the most value.
That s the type of thinking he applies in the operation of their mid-size Vandervalk Farms Ltd., where in 2009 they grew spring wheat, durum, canola, malt barley, yellow mustard and export timothy hay. Depending on the year they also grow certified canola seed.
When he left university in 1999 to return to agriculture, Steve was thrust into the daily management of the family farm. His father, James, had already launched what has become a successful custom trailer and truck deck manufacturing business in Fort Macleod Fal-Can Industries Ltd.
So when Steve came home, he was basically told, Here, you run it. And that s what he and his brother Brian have done. James still has a one-third interest in the farm, but his two sons handle the management and the day-to-day operations.
