It’s a daunting mix for young farmers. Land prices are soaring, production costs are climbing, interest rates are uncertain. And that’s not to mention the mix of international politics, market volatility and weather woes that are breeding black swans at historic rates.
With 2024 almost here, it’s hard to be any age. But how would you like to be young and at college or university, trying to prepare for the smart choices it’s going to take if the farm is ever going to survive.
Seriously, what will it take to succeed in farming until 2060?
Riley Buchanan is a sixth-generation beginning farmer on the family farm a half hour north of Winnipeg that he returned to after graduating with a University of Manitoba ag diploma this past spring. Now his aim is to keep clear-eyed.
With higher input prices, Buchanan knows it’s tough to pencil in big crop margins. But with high land prices, it’s also tough to commit to the traditional farm answer to low margins, i.e. more acres.
Buchanan does see an opportunity, though. It’s technology, which Buchanan sees as one of the great hopes for today’s young farmers. Variable rate, GPS and sectional control means they can simultaneously get more efficient and improve the land.
How does that play out? “Taking what they (young farmers) already have and making it better makes it less important for farms to expand to achieve better income,” the 20-year-old says.
Still, if he learned anything in his college program, it’s that being hopeful isn’t the same thing as having a plan. A plan takes business discipline.
Now Buchanan has returned to the University of Manitoba as a junior advisor and instructor for agriculture diploma students while he also begins setting himself up to make progress on the short- and long-term goals that his plan says are essential for making the farm sustainable.
The Buchanan farm has long practiced minimum tillage and he is looking at how they can reduce it even further to help increase the organic matter in their soils and prevent the nutrient and water losses tillage causes.
“Minimum or zero till has been a big conversation going around lately,” Buchanan says. “Back in the day it was common to till up all your fields after harvesting them. Now farmers are seeing the benefits from minimum or zero tillage and are also seeing the disadvantages from an environmental and economic standpoint when it comes to tillage.”
Buchanan also plans to expand their acreage under variable rate application, using soil sampling, prescription maps and sectional control to improve their existing land base.
“To reach our goals on our farm we will keep investing in new technology that helps us measure and analyze our performance and lets us improve our production year in and year out,” Buchanan says.
Once they have optimized the productivity of their existing acres, the longer-term goal is to expand by a few more acres to grow as an operation.
But that’s at home. So what are Buchanan and post-secondary teachers across the country doing to prepare other farmers for their career starts.
“For a business plan it’s important to come up with a solid foundation, so, if you are a grain farmer growing a cash crop, you’re looking at what are your most profitable crops,” says Mark Lahti, a professor at the University of Guelph Ridgetown Campus. “Then you need to look at how you can reduce some of the costs involved. That often means considering alternative farming methods like cover crops or integrating some other farming practices to be more efficient and cut down on costs associated with farming.”
Lahti emphasizes too that today’s farm is also a brand. In a world where the public’s scrutiny of farming has never been more intense, standing out from the crowd can help a farm find alternate revenue streams and be more successful.
“I tell my students that anytime you can become an expert in something, for example growing pedigree seed, or being known for whatever it is you stand for in the community can bode well,” Lahti says. “If people are taking over a cow/calf operation, is there an opportunity to get into purebred livestock and then look at additional ways to grow their market, whether that’s through bull sales, selling offspring or making connections to the local marketplace and selling beef?”
For a generation that has grown up immersed in social media and online communications, the concept of building a brand makes sense and is even enjoyable for many, although parents or grandparents who have spent most of their farming careers without such technology might view it as a waste of time.
“The older generation sometimes sees it as a nuisance when they see their grandson or granddaughter running around with a phone and videotaping, but at the same time it’s educational for them too,” Lahti says.
“What they need to realize is that a lot of these younger farmers are facing a huge disconnect between the farm and the public, so there is a real need to share messages about what is actually going on at the farm, and explain that people shouldn’t be afraid of a farm or think badly about farmers. It’s important for them to get that information out.”
Hitting reality
Lahti often hears some frustration from students who are chomping at the bit to try out some new ideas and start making more of the bigger business and management decisions on the farm — the kind of decisions that are usually the last to be delegated by Mom and Dad.
“There are definitely frustrations and especially as these young farmers are getting into things like cover crops and regenerative agriculture practices and trying to use some of the new technologies that have come out to help save money,” Lahti says.
Buchanan sometimes hears the same things from his peers but advises his students to take a step back and see it from their parents’ perspective too.
“Younger generations always like to joke about how the older generation used to farm when it comes to tillage practices, weed control or nutrient management but the truth is they didn’t have the technology advancements we do today,” says Buchanan.
“They also didn’t have access to social media like the current generation does now. I believe social media plays a big part in the evolution of farming. With the ability to get information worldwide so quickly, it has allowed researchers, scientists and agronomists to spread their new-found knowledge to farmers. This has allowed for more unique and diverse farming practices where the older generation never had that opportunity.”
Still, it’s hard for the older generation, stuck in their “when I was your age, I was doing this,” mindset to understand the pressures and the expectations on a younger generation, and vice versa.
“The younger generation never grew up knowing that era or doing those things, so this is the new norm for them,” Lahti says. “What they’re doing now, and what their children or grandchildren are going to do in 60 or 70 years are going to be totally different.”
That’s the reality of progress and of transition and it isn’t easy for family farms — or for anyone else in society, for that matter. But however much anyone wants to stamp their feet and hold their breath, it seems there’s no stopping the natural order of things, and maybe farmers ultimately have a more acute sense of that than people in other arenas. It doesn’t make it any easier, though.
“The reality of going from one generation to the next is that, with the current price of land and everything, there is a ton of money getting transferred,” Lahti says. “I have some students in my class who want to take over the family farm but they have no idea how they’re going to do that yet, especially if there are family members that are interested in the farm and others that aren’t. To do it ‘fair’ is going to cost them millions of dollars to buy out other siblings that don’t want anything to do with the farm. I don’t think some of these operations can be divided up fairly because that’s just the nature of the beast right now.”
Simply a road map
So, however good a business plan may be, it’s still a road map and sometimes there will be diversions; it’s a flexible, working document that will always need to reflect current and future realities.
Although Buchanan’s business plan is pretty hot off the press, it’s not likely to change much because in his case, it’s been a document that has basically set out what he and his dad have already been doing as they have worked together over the years, although both have their eyes wide open for opportunities.
“If we keep up with what we are doing and always want to do better, I believe we will be able to achieve our goal,” Buchanan says.
“Overall, I think agriculture is in a good spot, and if we can help people to look outside the box, there are opportunities … there is a lot going on,” Lahti agrees
“Try something new, something different,” Lahti says. “Get out there and find new ideas you can bring back to your farm.”