The Rural Voice, 1986-06, Page 17what we were thinking," John
said.
Despite their financial
challenges as pork producers in the
1980s (and perhaps because of
them) John doesn't believe in debt
forgiveness. "You can't run a
society on forgiveness of poor
management. Debt forgiveness
would punish the careful managers
who have made some decisions to
do without rather than to increase
their debt load," he says. The
Players intend to take on debt only
at the rate they can repay it.
In 1982, the brothers formed a
registered partnership with each
brother retaining ownership of his
own farm and renting the buildings
back to the company: Playerdise.
The name, "Playerdise" reflects
their positive attitude; despite the
challenges of farming, they still
consider it paradise.
The farms really became home
in 1983 when Gord and Cathy built
a home on their farm, and later
John and Vicki moved into the
house on their farm. That change
made farm life much more plea-
sant. Today, Cathy is homemaker
and mother of three, Mike, 5, Tim,
3, and Julie, almost one year old.
Vicki and John have a 20 -month
old daughter Lisa, and a four-
month old son, Mark.
John doesn't resent the extra
work required to establish a farm.
He says some farmers' sons want
to start off where their fathers end-
ed up. "They see a style of living
and think they deserve it. You
don't deserve anything. You have
to earn it," he said. The Players
didn't expect anything from the
farm at first. "The farm doesn't
owe us a vacation or $200 to $300 a
week," he says.
Before expanding the operation,
the Players improved their
management. "You'll never hear a
bad word about OMAF (the On-
tario Ministry of Agriculture and
Food) from us," he says. "When
we first sought help at the Strat-
ford OMAF office, they could
have easily said, "These guys are
hopeless." Agriculture Represen-
tative Alan Scott helped them
establish cash flows, and set up
other recordkeeping systems.
"When the bank first asked for a
cash flow statement, we thought
they just did it to aggravate us."
The Players use inventory records,
plus cash flow statements as real
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JUNE 1986 15