Farming '90, 1990-03-21, Page 20PARKER &
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PETROCANADA®
BY BONNIE GROPP
It is a beautiful day in 1984 and
the farmer stands on the land he
has tended, watching dejectedly as
the bailiff and his men confiscate
his livestock and machinery, taking
away all he has worked for and
fought for for the last few years.
This scenario has become all too
commonplace over the past decade
as unfortunately more and more
farmers find themselves unable to
cope with the financial and emo
tional pressures of the agricultural
industry.
But despite the anguish this
situation causes there are many
individuals who not only learn to
cope but valiantly rebuild their
lives and pursue other career
choices.
When Keith Winn (not his real
name) graduated from high school,
he had no intentions of helping out
on the family farm and immediately
left to make a life for himself in
New York City. There he spent
three years working first as a
messenger boy and ending as
Assistant Art Director in a moder-
atelv-sized commercial art and
photography studio that employed
a staff of about 80 people.
When his father suffered a mild
stroke, he returned to his home and
a life of farming, though he says
one circumstance had nothing to do
with the other. “I just decided to
come home, that’s all there is to it.
Sometimes I think I should have
stayed but every day takes a
different course.”
For the next few years Mr. Winn
worked with his father, who he says
never settled for second best and
instilled in him a strong work
ethic. Then in 1968 Mr. Winn
purchased his first farm - one that
was owned by his grandfather in
1916. With financial assistance
from his father, Mr. Winn bought
his second farm in 1969, which he
sold three years later.
The balance of his family’s
property - an additional 330 acres -
he purchased in 1976, and he
gradually, over the years, made the
transition from mixed farming to
cash cropping. By 1979 Mr. Winn
was a successful farmer with a net
worth of $600,000. By spring of ‘81
he no longer owned any property,
though he owed no money at the
bank. His net worth was $150,000
and, he states, he farmed for two
more years until that was gone.
‘‘In farming everything was a
good move until 1980. What went
wrong? For starters no one can
afford to pay 24 per cent interest,”
he says. ‘‘The last year I farmed I
was paying $200 a day in interest.
The irony of this was I had reached
a point where I was worth a lot, but
it just didn’t mean anything.”
For Hugh Charles (a pseudonym)
there was never a question as to
what his life’s work was to be, so he
quit school in Grade 10 and went to
help his father on the farm. While
the senior Mr. Charles handled the
livestock part of the operation, his
son loved to work the land.
In 1973 Mr. Charles bought a
farm just down the road from the
family homestead for $30,000, be
cause he said, ‘‘It was all I figured I
knew how to do and I was ready for
a place of my own.”
He established a lucractive cus
tom farming business and eventu
ally reached a net worth of approx
imately a quarter of a million
dollars. Then in 1980 interest rates
doubled and corn prices fell and
Mr. Charles like so many of his
Continued on page B5
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