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The Rural Voice, 2005-06, Page 26DEPENDABLE FARM DRAINAGE • Farm Drainage • Septic Systems (We are Licenced to install) • Backhoe Service • General Repair Service KMM FARM DRAINAGE Ron McCallum 887-6428 - Shop Paul McCallum 527-1633 • Teeswater Concrete • Teeswater Concrete • eeswater Concrete • Teeswater Concrete • Teeswater oncr• We Deliver - Quality Concrete & Quality Service Your local concrete producer serving agriculture with 3 convenient locations Tlwrt Klncard Teeswater 519-392-6776 1-800-263-2555 Clinton 519-482-3433 1-800-270-2050 Tiverton 519-368-7696 zir *` Rr hyo "Serving the area for 25 years" CONCRETE eD • Teeswater Concrete • Teeswater Concrete • 22 THE RURAL VOICE circumstances." The main competition comes not from other independent breeders but from multinational breeders like PIC International, he says. "I think we can be competitive with these companies." Procter admits he has been approached in the past by international breeding companies (no longer in existence) with offers to buy the operation. There are advantages to being associated with larger companies but there are also problems. Shareholders can decide the company should change direction, for instance. In many ways, pork seems to be following the trend of poultry, he says, but pigs can't follow the poultry example completely. For independent, non-aligned producers the question in the future may be if you have a market for your pigs, he says. Bodmin is an investor in Progressive Pork Producers' Conestoga Meat Packers Ltd. to assure a market for their market hogs. Today Bodmin has 2600 sows in in three barns and contracts with other producers for nurseries and finishing. They sell gilts from early wean to mature, terminal sires and sernenn for terminal breeding. Though the Bodmin Limited, which also has a cattle breeding operation and crops a Targe acreage, is 50 years old, the Procter family has been farming in this neighbourhood since the brothers' great grandfather and his brother arrived from Yorkshire, England in 1851. George Procter chuckles in describing how his own father illustrates how farming has changed over the years. His father only owned 87 acres of land but he made it through the Great Depression and raised five kids, all of whom went on to get an education. Two sons went to Ontario Agricultural College, one son went into the air force then trained at Ryerson before working in the nuclear industry, one daughter became a nurse and one became a teacher. Today another generation of Procters has joined the swine end of the operation with George and Elizabeth's daughter Kate KI;,ges coming on board, helping out in both the barns and the office.°