Meet farmer Alanna Coneybeare, helping us celebrate Canada’s Agriculture Day on February 22, 2022, as she explains a bit about herself, some trials and tribulations, and why she loves the farm life.
By Andrew Joseph, Farms.com; Photo via Alanna Coneybeare
Got milk?
Sure you do, and you may even have got it via dairy farmer Alanna Coneybeare, 29, of Conlee Farms Inc., south of Listowel, Ontario.
The 700-acre farm is, according to Coneybeare, about 75 percent dairy-based with about 110 milking cows, with the remainder taken up raising some 25,000 broiler chickens.
“I came home to farm after graduating university in 2016,” explained Coneybeare. “But prior to university (majoring in Political Science and Environmental Studies and minoring in Human Geography), I was always involved in farm work growing up, helping with chores, as many farm kids do.
“But it was never my intention to be a farmer,” she said, admitting she just kind of fell into the allure of the farm life. That and the family legacy aspect.
Coneybeare said that she is responsible for the farm’s herd management, overseeing the calf and heifer barns, paperwork for the dairy facilities, assisting with the broiler barns, and much more.
“Although I do not feed the cows, and we have a technician that comes in to breed the cows, I select the cows for breeding along with my choice of the bulls,” explained Coneybeare.
“Since our farm has autonomous robotic milking units, I also ensure that the robots are working and milking properly, provide basic maintenance and daily upkeep on the robots, and read copious amounts of data from the robots to monitor individual cow health and to intervene, when necessary,” she added. “And, once Spring comes around, I will do all of that, plus help with the field work, which continues for all but four months of the year.”
Farms.com asked Coneybeare just what it is about the farm life that she enjoys.
“Growing up in a rural area, farming is omnipresent—though perhaps I took for granted the uniqueness of our family farm,” Coneybeare reflected adding that very few Canadians get to grow up on a farm and have a relationship with food production at the scale that she did.
“It wasn't until I was at the University of Toronto that I really started to appreciate the farm that I was raised on. I became really enthralled with conversations about food, food systems and food sovereignty when I joined the Toronto Youth Food Policy Council,” she said.
“I was able to talk and think about food in a whole new way, and it was really exciting.”
Coneybeare said that it was then that she saw the opportunity to bring what she had learned while living in the city back home to the farm.
“I see all farms as incredible opportunities to contribute to Canada’s food system in a meaningful way,” she stated, “and now I get to be part of the decision-making process of a farm that is feeding people across the country.”
Coneybeare noted that there is something very captivating and gratifying about farming, and is thankful she has been afforded that opportunity.
“Not many people get to work so closely with the land around them,” explained Coneybeare. “We farmers get to have our work schedule very much synchronous with the seasons, and are able to see and appreciate the time, patience, skill and sometimes sheer luck that goes into producing the food that fills the grocery store shelves every day.
“There is something special about raising animals from the day they are born and caring for them for many years,” she added. “I am very fortunate to farm with my parents and employees—all of whom are seeking ways where we can improve; to find better ways of doing the job we love, and to improve the health of our animals and land.
“Our farm certainly isn’t large by today’s standard, but it is a very satisfying feeling that on our little piece, we are making contributions that we feel are meaningful, and doing it with future generations in mind.”
Family legacy… Coneybeare said it’s something that plays into her enthusiasm around her life and her farm life, as she is the fifth generation of her family to farm in this area.
“There was never any pressure from my parents for any of their children to farm,” she noted. “They always maintained that even for themselves, they were able to choose the life they wanted, and they wanted us to have that same freedom of choice. It is serendipitous that my education in urban Toronto led me back to the rural farm.”
Coneybeare noted that there is probably no farmer who got into farming to become rich or thought that it was an easy profession. “Farming is an all-consuming lifestyle, and for farmers it means sacrificing other things in order to farm and be successful at the thing we are passionate about.”
She continued: “This isn’t just a career that you pick up one day. It's a never-ending cycle of learning new skills, adapting to challenges and problem solving—and it is all in the pursuit of feeding other people, and producing food that we are proud of. It is incredibly rewarding to be involved in an industry that so many people rely on daily. Other Canadian farmers and I are passionate about ensuring that our contribution to the food system prioritizes animal welfare, and the health of the land that our future is inextricably tied to.”
Coneybeare cares about the farming profession—of that there can be no doubt—and cares about the emotional sphere of it, an oft-neglected aspect of ag life.
“I belong to a few different committees—many of them pertaining to supporting rural mental health,” she stated. “I am a member of the Suicide Awareness Council of Wellington Dufferin; volunteer on the Mental Health Committee of the Listowel Agricultural Society; and am one of the administrators of the website www.thefarmerstoolbox.com, which is a project of the Listowel Ag Society.
“When I came home from university, it was jarring to see the difference in access to mental health resources here compared to the university environment.
“It very quickly became an issue that I continue devote a lot of my free time to, limited though it may be,” she said. “Yes, there has been a positive shift in normalizing conversation around mental health, but there is still a gapping hole in our healthcare system that has left people in rural Ontario very vulnerable and with insufficient access to affordable and appropriate mental health care.”
Despite her efforts in this area, Coneybeare said that just being a woman in the ag profession has caused her stress—seeking some relief after converting her garage into a rock-climbing facility.
“There certainly are challenges being a woman in this profession, and I say this recognizing the amount of privilege I have being a post-secondary educated White woman. Some of the comments are overt, with people feeling they have the right to tell me when I should start having children or that my time for doing so is dwindling—my responses to them would not be able to be printed.”
She offered other frustrating experiences: “There have been many times that someone has either come to our farm, or in a conversation with me, asked to speak to my husband or father,” she smiled, noting they don’t get to continue much farther with their sales pitch.
“It is shocking to me that this still happens in 2022, considering that a vast number of young women are entering our profession—and yet I know my experiences are not unique.”
Coneybeare perhaps derived some of her fierceness from having grown up in a household that along with her dad and her mom, also contained four sisters—no brothers—where work never was divided by gender.
“We were not told that we couldn’t do something because of our gender,” she said, “all the work around the farm had to be done and we were all capable of doing it. ‘
Summing up, Coneybeare noted that because she grew up with strong female role models all around her—and parents did not let gender become a predeterminate of goals—she never stopped to question what she wanted to do.
“If there was something I wanted to try, I have been afforded the opportunity to go for it,” Coneybeare acknowledged. “I am so fortunate for this privilege and upbringing because again, it was something I took for granted. But not any longer. I love the life that ag has given to me.”