The past, present and future of Canadian farming

CLIP You are listening to a Frequency Podcast, network production in association with City News.

Jordan Heath Rawlings You are listening to a Frequency Podcast network production. You probably have a vision in your head of a Canadian farmer, and I bet it’s not entirely wrong, but it’s certainly getting less accurate by the year. You might picture an older man, usually white working acres of family farmland using heavy machinery to till and mow and plow. He works a field at least of each crop, maybe. He only grows one thing and sometimes soon he’ll retire and pass the business down to his children as his father did to him, not entirely wrong. There are thousands of Canadian farmers like that, but fewer every year. Canada’s farmers are aging and while they may have taken over the business from their parents, It’s not so clear cut that their kids will ever take over for them, or that the land will remain in the family at all. It may end up as part of a corporate mega farm. It is getting harder and harder to find people willing to commit to a lifetime on the farm. So some farmers are trying to recruit new Canadians to fill those gaps. At the other end of the spectrum are the young farmers. The ones who didn’t inherit family land, the ones who rent their land, and who don’t have much of it, the ones who grow whatever they can on whatever land they’ve got. And because all those crops are so close together and complicated, they have to adapt those big farming practices to fit their space and their style. Yes, farming in Canada is changing. But one thing isn’t, and it’s critical, we still need, maybe now more than ever, to grow as much of the food we eat in Canada as possible. Whoever grows it, however they do it.

I am Jordan Heath Rawlings. This is The Big Story today. Two conversations reflecting the two ends of the Canadian farming spectrum. First of all, Keith Currie, who is the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and also himself a farmer. Hello Keith.

Keith Currie Hello, Jordan.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Thanks for joining us today.

Keith Currie Well, I appreciate the opportunity.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Can you start, maybe just to level set here for our, our audience. Can you start by telling us about the, RBBC report? What did it say?

Keith Currie Sure. Well, it, it said some things that were kind of surprising, but not surprising to those of us in the, in the agriculture community. I think the, the biggest takeaways were that, within the next decade we’re looking at roughly about 40% of the people surveyed indicated they were going to be retiring. Well, that’s surprising. It’s not really surprising. I mean, I think we’ve been looking at that for some time as, as an issue. We also know that, as was indicated in the report, there are a lot of jobs going unfulfilled on farm estimating somewhere around 24 to 25,000 on-farm jobs, not being filled. And, it looked at things like, you know, what is the succession plan that’s in place for farmers? And, you know, while the, the report indicated that 66% of producers don’t have a plan in place, the surprising thing for us in agriculture is nearly 40% said that they did. And, and if you look at where that survey might have been, say 10, 15 years ago, that’s a market increase. But it’s still kind of shocking that two thirds of our producers don’t have a plan in place for sure. So, you know, where are we gonna find those gaps? Those are things that, that, that were talked about. And you know, what, what, what’s a long term need for skill sets, et cetera, is something that they identified. So these are some of the, some of the key findings that were found in the report.

Jordan Heath Rawlings And we’re gonna talk about all that stuff. But first, you know, the report is one thing. what people on the ground see and hear is another. So, you know, did that ring true personally for you and in your situation? And, and what about the other farmers or your members that you talk to kind of regularly, you know, what’s on their minds and what are they thinking about related to this?

Keith Currie Well, the one thing about agriculture is it’s both an exciting industry to be in, but it’s also one that has a lot of uncertainty about what the future holds, and that’s, that’s not necessarily something that’s new. I look at myself over my career. I mean, I all I’ve ever done, all I’ve ever wanted to do was farm and, and, you know, when I began this journey in my twenties and I’m, I’ll be 62 this year, you know, the average age of the farmer at that time was in the fifties then. And, and people were starting to, to send up, you know, some signals that, oh, what’s gonna happen? And the reality is when you look at farming operations, because about about 90% of our. Farms across this country are family owned and operated. There’s certainly, the dynamics of the family is, is changing. It’s not just father passing on or mother, father, mother passing on to children. But we have fathers and mothers and we have sons and daughters and we have grandfathers and grandmothers and maybe even grandchildren involved. We have aunts and uncles and, and cousins so that it dynamics have changed, but it’s still family owned and operated. So that potentially, because there’s. Various levels of ownership in the farm may skew those numbers a little bit, but the reality is much like most of society that baby boomers are gonna be retiring in in the next decade. And, and agriculture is certainly subject to that. So what does that mean from a labor aspect? And I think that’s what we have to really come to terms with and, and how we deal with it going forward. So, my perspective’s the same. I have four children that, are in their late, twenties to early thirties, and, You know, I’ve, I’ve encouraged them to get off the farm and, and find an education, and if they want to come back and farm, it’s here. But I, I, I certainly am not putting any pressure on anybody to, to come back to the farm I’m eighth generation, what I’d like to see a ninth? Absolutely. But that might be my grandchildren. Who knows? but you know, it has to be their decision. So these are some of the dilemmas that farm families across the country certainly are dealing with on a daily basis.

Jordan Heath Rawlings I mean, that’s something that, as I mentioned to you, before we started this interview, you know, my parents are farmers and, and they’re getting older and, and they wonder who they’re gonna pass it on to or, or what they’re going to do. And first of all, why do you think that’s happening that there is sort of a, a lack of or a need for a next generation that’s not kind of appearing right away. And second, like what happens if those farmers don’t find, whether it’s family or somebody else, someone to keep the business part of it going and they turn into like hobby farms, right?

Keith Currie Well, I mean, I, I guess in theory there’s certainly that, that danger that, that may happen. But the reality is, you know, agriculture is big business. It’s a tremendous economic driver for, for the country. It’s also the fact that also the fact that, that Canada is such a, not only self-sufficient and, and, and food production, but we are a big contributor on the world market. As far as exporting food products. And so that simply from that economic aspect, there’s, there’s gonna be a lot of opportunity there. And what we’re seeing, like in a lot of industries is a lot of consolidation. Farms are getting bigger. Some of that is just the, the margins are so tight that you need that volume of scale. And for those people that maybe not, wanting to exit the farming operation and don’t have anyone, you know, either a neighbour or a family member to pass the farm onto it, it, it goes up for sale and, and other farmers will, will purchase those operations. And so you, you’re, you’re seeing the, the land continue to be used in, in, in food production, but it may not be, the same number of farmers involved. We, we, we may have less farmers or less operations, I should say, involved and, and so I, I honestly don’t, I’m not worried that. That our land that’s producing food now won’t continue to do so. I’m, I’m really not, I’m really not worried about that cuz we’ve seen a lot of consolidation in the last 25-30 years as well. So I I, I I think we’re gonna be fine. I, I don’t have any fear that way. Certainly there will, there’s always a lot of urban pressure as well, urban development pressure that’s going on across the country. And that’s going to, that’s gonna take up some of our farmland because we are looking for, more new Canadians to come into Canada for all industries, but certainly agriculture’s no different. And, and we need new Canadians to help fill some of those job losses or job unfulfilled positions I talked about a little bit earlier, but I, but I still see that agriculture’s gonna stay strong in the future.

Jordan Heath Rawlings So let’s talk about, those operators then. How many of them could we need in the years to come as, the older generation of farmers retires, and where can we find them?

Keith Currie Well, there’s a lot of, variabilities, in, in what could be the right answer to that question. Certainly new Canadians are something that we feel is, is, a good starting point to fulfilling some of those positions, especially given the fact that, you know, when it comes to immigration, we do a lot of pre-screening of, of who’s coming in. And we know in a lot of cases, some of our new immigrants have a lot of skillsets, whether they have an agriculture background or whether they’re in, a service industry that supports. Agriculture and, and I think there’s a lot of opportunities there to not just put new Canadians in the condensed urban settings, but get them out into the rural parts of, of Canada. So they’ll not only help agriculture and agriculture industry out there, but they’ll also be part of revitalization of rural communities. I think that’s vitally important to, to everyone to have those rural communities revitalized. So I think there’s those kind of opportunities educating people about the opportunities that are in agriculture are in working in agriculture. And yes, there’s the on-farm stuff that’s, that’s obvious, but we become very technologically advanced. We have more technologies in our tractors right now than you see in planes flying around the sky. People just don’t understand it. And there’s, there are sensors and there’s robots and there’s all kinds of these types of technological advancements and you know, You give ’em to me, I can run them, but don’t ask me to fix them or don’t ask me to write software for them.

So where are the people coming to do that kind of work for us? Where are the, the next round of, equipment mechanics? Where are the next, veterinarians? We are not just, thousands of dollars of business now. We’re tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in business. So where’s our financial advisors and accountants and, and our bankers? Where, where’s that aspect coming from? And where are all the researchers that we need for livestock genetics for plant genetics, the crop advisors that we need for growing our crops. So there’s, there’s a lot of opportunities in the agriculture industry that I don’t think people are aware of. So how do we get into the high schools and the post-secondary school facilities to make sure people are aware when they graduate? Here’s a, here’s, here’s a job for you that you might like even poaching from current people in current careers where they might not understand, the opportunities in agriculture. A prime example, going through when we were going through the whole covid process, early in the early days, at that time I was still president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and I worked very closely with people in the tourism industry. There was a lot of skill within the tourism industry that suddenly found themselves out of a job and we’re saying, Hey, Agriculture’s still working and agriculture needs you. So can we, can we find alliances there with, with like industries that have like skillsets? And so there’s all kinds of opportunities to encourage people to come into the business. We just need to make sure that there’s an, that awareness piece there.

Jordan Heath Rawlings This is something that people in the younger generations, like you said, maybe just don’t understand because they have this image of a farmer, you know, hoeing the fields and, and hanging out at a red painted barn and et cetera, et cetera. And I even in the last 10, 15 years, things have gone way beyond that. Can you walk us through a couple of them?

Keith Currie Yeah. I mean, I, I think what’s encouraging for me as far as, family members, young family members coming back to the farm is that, that. As I keep telling people, agriculture’s got sexy again, and that’s because of technology. You know, I am lost without my smartphone as our, as are most farmers these days. Whether it’s simple things like predicting weather and using various types of weather apps to understand what you’re going to do that day or that week or, or how you’re planning process goes for, for your farm operation to. When I’m going out to, plant my fields, for example, I have what’s called variable rate fertilizer. So I base that software practice of varying the amount and the types of fertilizer in my field based on the soil samples that I took. I might have taken tissue samples from the plants from the previous year. I use, technology that will map the yield. I combine all those factors together and I base that on the type of crop I’m growing, what varieties I’m growing. And I can vary the, not only the, the types of seed in the field while I’m planting, but I also can vary the, the fertilizer that I’m planting.

But I need, I need the science behind it to, to, in order to make it work, whether that’s the actual science for the plant itself, whether that’s the science of the soil that the plant’s going into, whether that’s the science of the technology that I’m using to accomplish the, the application. And you can, you can look at. You know, greenhouses and how modern they are today with virtually most of ’em not even using soil anymore. That’s how advanced the science is in, in what they’re doing there with genetics and, and with hydroponics, et cetera. Or whether you look at various robots in different livestock barns, dairies of prime example, where majority of barns now that are, are going and use robotic milkers, that they, they can monitor the cattle coming through. Not only did the animal come in to get milked, what time it got milked, what was the temperature of the animal, how much milk did it produce, what was the protein source? What kind of feed does it get? Do I detect, an increase in temperature indicating the animal may not be feeling well? All these kinds of things, and that needs science behind it. So connectivity in general is, is a, is a big thing and it’s, it’s kind of what we’re lacking in rural Canada, but it’s kind of what we need to go forward. So there’s a lot of opportunities there.

Jordan Heath Rawlings For our second conversation today, we turn to a new generation of Canadian farmer, Aliyah Fraser, who is the owner and operator at Lucky Bug Farm. Hey Aaliyah.

Aliyah Fraser Hi Jordan. Thanks for having me.

Jordan Heath Rawlings You’re very welcome. Um, I’m excited to talk about this, but maybe first, just tell me what is Lucky Bug Farm? What do you do?

Aliyah Fraser So, lucky Bug Farm is a small scale, you know, market garden as I like to call it, located in Baden, Ontario, which is just outside of Kitchener Waterloo. And I grow a diversity of vegetables, so everything from tomatoes to radishes. To lettuce, to Cole Rav and cabbage on a small scale, so about a quarter of an acre, and using ecologically and organic, practices. So really doing what I do with care for the Earth and also care for, the communities that I live within.

Jordan Heath Rawlings I’m always hesitant to ask people their age, but it is so relevant here because we wanted to do this episode after a report came out recently about, just frankly, how old, Canadian farmers are right now. You are a young farmer. How did you get into this? How old are you? Why, why does this industry excite you?

Aliyah Fraser Great question. So as of very soon, I will be turning 27. So I am on the younger scale of most farmers and why do I do what I do? That is a great question. I think for me personally, the pandemic was a really, really a titanic shift in my life in terms of putting some things into context and, and really forming a picture of what’s or what, to me at least, is some of the most important things in this life. And I think for us here in Canada, access to food is going to be really important. Access to locally grown food is more important, and even going a level deeper. Access to food that is locally grown with good labor practices. And in a way that is respectful of the Earth’s functions, was something that I really wanted to model with Lucky Bug and, and kind of show people that farming doesn’t always have to be, you know, large scale tractor, white man. Not that those are bad things, but just that’s kind of what people picture when they think about farming. And I, I wanted to broaden that picture a bit.

Jordan Heath Rawlings You’re different in another way. Tell me about the land you farm. You’re the owner operator, but the land’s not yours?

Aliyah Fraser Yeah, so I think one big hurdle that a lot of young farmers have to jump over these days is access to land, especially in Ontario, the cost of land is really disconnected from the amount of money that you can make from a career as a farmer, especially when you’re just starting out in the first few years. So I own and operate the business. You know, Lucky Bug is, is my baby, but I don’t own the land that I farm on. I actually rent land from an organic cattle farmer, so they have, you know, hundreds and hundreds of acres of land on their property, and I’m really lucky to be able to rent, you know, the quarter of an acre that I do from them. But like, I really appreciate the farm owners and, and have a great relationship with them. But you know, looking at things from a systemic scale, this is not the way to promote new people or encourage new people to, to enter the field of agriculture, especially people who, you know, don’t have generational wealth. And really can’t access the amount of money that is required to purchase land in this province.

Jordan Heath Rawlings When you look at your process and then you look at, you know, the, the big scale farming, that we just described, give me an overview of what is so different about what you do? Smaller obviously, but different in other ways as well.

Aliyah Fraser Yeah, I think I like to look at it as being a bit more circular than the traditional, way of farming, which is really dependent on synthetic chemicals and fertilizers being applied at a regular basis or on a regular basis in the spring every year. Which is really reliant on, you know, tillage to control weeds and, and pesticides and herbicides to control weeds as well as pests and the tendency for large scale farming to, to happen in mono crops. So for one crop to be grown on a piece of land that is hundreds and hundreds of acres in size, right. Whereas I try to kind of work in the opposite of a lot of what I just mentioned in, in a way that is more circular. So that means for me, rather than using synthetic chemicals, I only use organically derived herbicides and, fertilizers and pesticides. I use compost as my most regular soil amendment. I grow a variety of crops and in addition to growing a variety of crops, I also grow and plant, you know, pollinators and other beneficial flowers and herbs so that I’m not just, you know, attracting pests, but also attracting beneficial insects and, and pollinators to encourage just a diversity of life on the farm that I am able to grow on. And maybe one last thing I’ll mention is that minimal tillage. And so when you, till year after year, or multiple times a year, what you’re doing is destroying soil structure and also, I don’t wanna say killing, that’s a really strong word, but you’re also destroying, you know, the, the microbes and the fungus and all of the organisms that live within the soil, which are really actually important to growing healthy crops. And so, yeah, try to think of it less as a you know, step one, step two, step three, step four kind of process and more as a flywheel and as a circular model where a lot of the things that come out of the ground in some way, shape, or form, go back into it later.

Jordan Heath Rawlings So right now, you are a genuine, you know, small business success story. We spoke a little earlier to Keith Curry, who’s the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and he was talking about just how many older farmers that I mentioned are wondering what their succession plan is for their farms and those are the big kind of farms that, that we’ve just discussed. Do you have ambition to go in that direction? Because like talking to you, it seems like you are the kind of person, that agriculture needs as we deal with this, this crop of aging farmers?

Aliyah Fraser Yeah. I do think that there are so many farmers like me, young, maybe a bit inexperienced, maybe have a ton of experience in agriculture who are looking for land and who are looking for land to grow on. I think the limiting factor, like I mentioned, is the cost of that land and for a lot of farmers, You know, selling the land at market rate, which is quite high, is their retirement plan. And so it’s a really difficult position to be in to obviously, you know, they deserve to, to live a comfortable life, but also it’s important to, to have young farmers have access to land. So I don’t have any solutions for that. But I do think it’s important that people kind of recognize the, the conundrum and kind of the catch 22 that we’re in. You know, this is something that governments ideally would address through policy change and I think that is really important, especially in Ontario, but also across the country because the high cost of land is not just a problem that is happening in Ontario. In terms of my personal ambitions, I don’t always want to stay small. I would like to grow the business. I would like to have more land than just a quarter of an acre at some point. And I am expanding on the land that I’m growing on now, thanks to those owners, which is really good. I think more than having just more land from a size perspective, what I’m looking for at this point is security in land, right? And so being able to farm in a place where, I know that, you know, I can invest looking on the 20, 30, 40 year horizon. And so I don’t think I have a clean, clear cut answer to your question about, you know, what it would take. But I think it’s a combination like always of, of government action and of, you know, public demand and obviously about farmers and farm organizations like Farmers for Climate Solution and the National Farmers Union continuing to advocate for a local food system that is rooted in people and not just corporate control, which is kind of where we’re heading with a lot of these farmers retiring.

Jordan Heath Rawlings The last thing I want to ask you, and I’m just because I’m, I’m fascinated by the challenges it might pose, as somebody who does, come from a bit of a family of farmers, all the stuff that you mentioned when describing what makes your business and your farm unique. If you got the chance to own some land and really expand that, how do you expand something with those kind of practices to make it a large scale operation? Is that possible? What kind of challenges would you face?

Aliyah Fraser Oh, it’s definitely possible. I am. You know, this is only my third year, my third growing season. And so you really get one crack at it every single year. Right. And you learn what you can and you try and implement that the next season. So it’s, it’s a slow building process, I think, to be sustainable. But, you know, you move from where I’m at, which is using hand tools and, and not too much mechanical cultivation to using, you know, or a walk behind tractor.

Jordan Heath Rawlings What’s that?

Aliyah Fraser So walk behind Tractor is a tool with a small engine. You can change out the implements on it like you would a tractor. So you can have, you know, something that mows crops or, or grass. You can have something that does light tillage. You can have something that works the soil in a variety of other ways. There are so many implements for a BCS. But it is a mechanized tool that allows you to complete the tasks a bit faster, especially if you’re working on scale. And then you move up to tractor scale, you know, the, the tractors that you envision and kind of think about when you think about farming. You can grow ecologically on scale. It doesn’t have to be just a small scale endeavor. I am just down the road from a farmer who has been farming on the same land that she’s been on for 15 years. Her community supported agriculture program, which means, you know, people pay upfront and then get veggies throughout the year. Is grown to over 300 people. Hmm. And there are a couple of other farms in and around where I live and grow that are bigger than me at various scales. And so I think scaling up slowly is definitely possible and something that I’m interested in. I just know that I wanna learn as much as I can on the small scale before I kind of commit to growing acres and acres of crops.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Aaliyah, thank you so much for this. It’s a fascinating glimpse into, the kind of farming, like you mentioned, I don’t think many people see in Canada. So thanks again.

Aliyah Fraser Thanks for having me. And, I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about what I do and talk about Lucky Bug and again, broaden people’s perspective of what agriculture can look like in this country.

Jordan Heath Rawlings That was Aaliyah Fraser of Lucky Bug Farm and Keith Currie, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. And that was The Big Story. For more, you can head to TheBigStorypodcast.ca. You can find us on Twitter @TheBigStoryfpn. You can talk to us anytime by emailing hello@TheBigStorypodcast.ca. The Big Story is available wherever you get your podcasts, and we would love it if you like one of our episodes to share it with a friend who may not have heard of us. That’s how we grow. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.