HomeMy WebLinkAboutFarming '88, 1988-03-30, Page 30PAGE 6. FARMING ’88, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 1988.
4th generation carries on Morris beef business
BY KEITH ROULSTON
Keith Elston always had it in the
back of his mind that he’d take over
the family farm, even though other
members of the family were going
on to pursue off-farm careers.
Keith, 34 and his wife Barb took
over the farm three years ago. They
run a * ‘backgrounding* * operation,
bringing in calves from the west,
feeding them over the winter then
selling some off in the spring and
pasturing the rest, usually 150-200
head, for the summer. They don’t
feed any cattle out, a wav of
operating that gives them a fair
amount of flexibility in when they
choose to sell to get the best prices,
he say s. He is the fourth generation
on this century farm settled by
John Elston in 1861.
His father Bill was a farmer
politician, serving many years as
Morris township reeve as well a
term as Huron county warden.
Politics caught the eye of Keith’s
brother Murray who is now
chairman of the cabinet for the
Ontario government. Another
brother Wayne went to Ridgetown
College and now works for a feed
company. But, Keith says, he got
his education at home.
When he finished a five year
science, technology and trades
division course at F.E. Madill
Secondary School in Wingham,
colleges like Centraiia still didn’t
figure into future planning, he
says. Keith stayed at home and
worked for Huron County on
bridge construction for several
summers while coming home to
work on the farm in the winters.
But, he says, you can only do one
job right and he eventually made
the decision that had always
been in the back of his head: to take
over the farm.
When he and Barb got married
five years ago they took over the old
family home and Bill and Isabel
moved to a new home on the next
concession. Three years ago he
officially took over the farm.
You choose fanning as a way of
life, Keith says, rather than it
being a job. He’s not very
optimistic about farming as a
business. He feels that with animal
activitist and environmentalists
and conservationists and their
pressures for legislation farming is
becoming more difficult. The
farming industry is not going as it
should be and may need to go back
and trace itsfootsteps to see where
it’s been to learn lessons for the
future, he says.
Still, he says he continues to run
the farm pretty much the way his
father did. It’s a relatively small
operation with Keith having 100
acres and his father another 100.
He hasn’t been tempted to get into
cash cropping even though the
cash-croppingtrend has moved
steadily northward over the years.
Cash cropping would require too
high input costs particularly from
machinery, he says. The land,
rolling in the Maitland River valley
also doesn’t make the best cash
crop land, he says.
Cropping on the Elston farm is
confined to growing feed for the
cattle wintered in the barns. That
kind of cropping leads to natural
crop rotation and means that he
hasn’t had to worry about going
after money from the land steward
ship program.
Although he does from time to
time have some pigs, for the most
part the cattle are the sole source of
income for the farm. While he does
think that a mixed farming opera
tion isn’t necessarily a bad thing he
doesn’t worry about having all his
eggs in one basket because of the
flexibility of the backgrounding
business. Cattle can be sold
whenever the price is right and he
isn’t forced to sell when the cattle
Continued on page 7
aerates the soil
Doug Kirk by
887-6428
Keith Elston is the fourth generation of his family to farm his Morris
Township Century Farm. He and his wife Barb took over the beef
operation three years ago. Farming is a way of life, not a business, he
says.
Bill McClure
527-0989
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• increases land value
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887-6318
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