Farm family rebuilding after spring fire

Sep 15, 2016

Jobin Farms suffered $1 million in damages in April

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

A Windsor-area farm family has started rebuilding after a fire in April caused about $1 million in damages.

Phil Jobin of Jobin Farms said in addition to the $2 million facility, new farming methods will be employed to reduce the risk of another fire.

"Before, in our barn, for instance, we used to bed two to three times a day with straw. With the new facilities, we bed once a week with sand. So you're using non-combustible materials," Jobin told CBC.

Jobin Farms Fire
The afteramth of a fire at Jobin Farms in April.
Photo: Dale Molnar/CBC

A new barn is also being built on clay, and will be about two metres above grade. This allows for manure to flow to a new storage tank.

Construction on the barn begins October 1.

Jobin said the farm should be running by June 2017, but there’s still a lot of work ahead of them.

"It's coming together. A lot of planning, a lot of preparation that has to go into the new farm, because everything's going to be state-of-the-art and up to today's environmental codes," he told CBC.

The fire on April 18 caused about $1 million in damages and killed 100 cows.

It was caused when straw built up on the shredding machine’s muffler and engine.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.