HomeMy WebLinkAboutFarming '88, 1988-03-30, Page 32PAGE 8. FARMING ’88, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 1988.
been some happy stories
Even in cash crops there have
Continued from page 5
just after the 1986 crop year ended
in Augustwhen some farmers were
able to sell 1987 beans at inflated
1986 prices).
Then there was the fact that
although corn prices were low last
year, yields averaged 140-160
bushels per acre compared to the
normal 110 bushels. “You have to
hit some luck,” he smiles.
Paul was a participant in the
Beginning Farmers Assistance
Program (BFAP) of the Ontario
Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
The program which ended last
year, offers an interest reduction
plan for young farmers as well as
seminars and workshops on farm
management techniques. Paul
says he took advantage of the
program mostly for the interest
help since most of the programs he
already had learned at college.
That college training helps him do
the bookkeeping required by the
program, such as preparing a
cashflow and a balance sheet and
projection for the coming year. He
concedes that probably the educa
tional part of the program would be
beneficial for those who haven’t
been to college (he says about 80
per cent of the you ng farmers he
knows have been to an agricultural
college).
The two years away at college
helped in more than just providing
education in management prac
tices, he feels. “If you just stay on
the farm you wonder what it might
have been like to have gone away, ’ ’
he says.
A lot of his cautious thinking
about farming probably comes not
from school, but from his father, he
says, who in his 28 years on the
farm has had a conservative
approach. That approach shows up
in Paul’s own advice to other young
farmers who might be getting into
the business, perhaps taking
advantage of the cash grants
available under the New Farm
Start program.
His first piece of advice is not to
start into something that is too big
that the beginning farmer can’t
handle it at the start. Don’t borrow,
Co-op introduces
new alfalfa
variety
Co-op’s newest exclusive alfal
fa variety, Centurion, has recently
been registered by Agriculture
Canada and is recommended for
use in Ontario by the Ontario
Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
United Co-operatives of Ontario
(UCO), which offers a wide range
of excellent producing forages, has
added this new variety to those
available at Co-op stores through
out the province.
Centurion offers outstanding
multiple disease resistance. It is
rated moderately resistant for
verticillium wiltwhich is a problem
plaguing forage producers across
Ontario. Centurion also has mod
erate resistance to phytophthora
root rot and is resistant to bacterial
wilt.
High yielding Centurion can
tolerate moderately drained soils
and shows excellent winter hardi
ness.
too much, he says. And young
farmers must realize that they’re
going to have to do without for the
first few years. The problem for a
lot of you ng farmers, he says, is
that they look around them and see
their neighbours who have been
farming 30 years with nice build
ings and nice equipment and a
house that’s fixed up and they
think they should be at that level,
forgetting how many years it took
the neighbour to get that far.
And, he says, don’t spend all
your money in a good year but put
some away because there are
bound to be bad years ahead.
Farmers are the worst people
when it comes to being competitive
with their neighbours, he says with
the wisdom that seems to come
from someone much older. Young
farmers have to stop themselves
from getting into that kind of
competitive situation, being will
ing to pay $52 to rent land just
because a neighbour has offered
$50. Farmers have become so
competitive that a lot of farmers
who live on the same concession
don’t associate with each other
anymore. It would probably be
better for farmers to get some of
their old co-operative instinct back
and share costly equipment, he
says.
Although he sees farming as a
way of life and not a business he is
still optimistic about the future. “I
don’t think it can get any worse,”
he says, in the slow, relaxed way of
a typical Huron county farmer. If
you can live through the tough
times it will make you appreciate
the good times more when they
come.