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Home My WebLink AboutFarming '88, 1988-03-30, Page 29FARMING ’88, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 1988. PAGE 5. Young Huron farmers show new interest in the business There has been so much doom and gloom around the farming industry in recent years as farmers caught in the double whammy of high debts/high interestand low commodity prices were driven from their land. Butthereare encouragingsigns.WhentheOntarioMinistryof Agricultureand Food held an information meeting for the Farm-Start program in January, more than 300 young hopeful farmers showed up at the meeting. If they enter the program they will join a band of young farmers who are already providing a hopeful new farming generation, farmers who started farming in the last five years when the situation seemed blackest. Here are the stories of two young farmers who are determined to carry on the farming way of life in Huron County. Paul Johnston at 24 has already been farming for five years. Young farmers can’t afford to get caught up in big dreams, he says. Take it one step at a time young Morris farmer says Don't wait for last minute for OFFIRR application BY DON PULLEN AGRICULTURAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR HURONCOUNTY The deadline for the 1987 OFFIRR Program is May 18, 1988. If previous years are any measure, there will be a large number of applications received in the OFFIRR office near the deadline. Now is a good time to apply - when the number of applications received is low. Why not get your application finished and send it in this month? The OFFIRR staff will then be able to process your application quickly and get your rebate to you early. Ifyou need information about the program application forms or help with your application, please call us at the Agricultural Office. BY KEITH ROULSTON Paul Johnston is a young farmer who doesn’t think big, and it may be his salvation as a beginning farmer in the 1980’s. The24-year-oldMorris town ship farmer says he hasn’t made any big plans for the future of his farm. “You can’t get too carried away with your dreams,’’ he says. The caution may be part of being a farmer starting out after one of the worst periods in farming in 50 years. Young farmers have been affected by the hardships of the last decade, he feels. “Idon’tthink you’ll see people going out and borrowing as large sums of money as they did before. For one thing, I don’t think people will be as generous in lending it.’’ The hard times of the early 1980’s did nothing to deter Paul from deciding to follow his father into farming. There were times while he was studying at Centralia College in 1982 and 1983 that he did think that his education would give him something to fall back on if he ever was unable to keep farming because of injury or other cause, he says, but he’d never really thought of wanting to be any thing other than a farmer. The attraction of being his own boss, of setting his own hours was what made him want to come back to the farm while most of his Centralia classmates chose careers in agribusiness or other fields. Of the 120 people who started outin his class at Centralia only about 70 graduated, and of those he doubts if a dozen or 15 went back to the farms they had come from. 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Priced at under $17,000.00 1988 Chev Van ’A ton V-6, automatic Reduced$1000.00 All Prices Include Freight - Test Drive A Chevy Astro Van Today AND MORE TRUCKS JL MCCUTCHEON MOTORS ltd =-■ BRUSSELS, ONTARIO 887-6856 was a trend that disturbed many farm observers who worried that a generation offarmers would be lost because of the depressed state of the farm economy. But Paul never really left farming, even while he was in school. He rented land during his college summers and cash-cropp ed it providing the money to go to school and helping raise the money for the eventual down payment on his own farm. That, and the knowledge that his father needed help on the farm, and if he didn’t come home someone else would have to be hired to do the work, made it a natural decision to come home. In 1983 one of the farms he had rented came up for sale and he decided to buy it. It’s just one farm away from his father’s farm so it makes it convenient for the two to work together. Now he barters his time helping his father for the use of his father’s equipment saving him from a large investment in that area. He had no real game plan when he started farming. The farm he bought had a barn on it so he decided to put some livestock in it, even though his own favourite aspect of farming is cropping. Now, like his father, he has a mixed farm with cattle, pigs and sheep. The livestock has helped a lot in the last couple of years, he says. Crop prices have been slashed nearly in half since he bought the farm in 1983. That year he sold corn off the field at $4.20 a bushel and the last couple of years it’s been $2.20. Barley that sold for $160 a ton then sold for $90 last year. But the livestock end of the operation has gone in the opposite direction, with pigs getting strong at the same time as feed prices dropped. “If you couldn’t make a profit in hogs in the last year and a half there’s not much use trying,’’ he says. Cattle prices have recovered somewhat but it is the lamb market that has been the biggest boost. When he graduated from college lamb for the Easter market was selling from $80 to $100 and now it’s at $120-$ 140, he says. He talked to a buyer of lamb at the Kitchener market who told him the market for fresh lamb just keeps growing and growing, as the ethnic population in the big cities seeks quality fresh lamb. Recently Paul sold a choice 65 pound lamb for $146. The ethnic people aren’t afraid to pay dearly for their food, he says. That works out to about $5 or $6 a pound while people are complaining about paying $2 or $3 for beef. Still it is in cashcropping that he hopes to expand. Despite the bad news of the last few years it isn’t all black, he says. “There are always sad stories. You never hear the good stories. ’ ’ The good stories for the Johnston family include gett ing all their white beans off before the rains hit in the disastrous fall of 1986 and thus reaping the big prices paid for scarce quality beans that year. (He missed by about a week hitting the jackpot twice when his 1987 crop was taken off Continued on page 8 frucks cks cks 4x4 1985 Ford Ranger 1984 Ford F150 1984 Ford F150 1983 Chev C10 1982 Chev Silverado 1981 Chev C10 1980 GMC C15 1980 Dodge D100 1980 Ford 3/< ton 1980 Jeep CJ5 1979 Chev 1 ton 1979 GMC 3/4 ton 1979 Dodge, As Is 1974 Chev 1 ton J