The Rural Voice, 2001-01, Page 22It's about more than pigs
Florian Possberg is building 5,000 -sow hog operations in
Saskatchewan, but he likes the healthy local economy Ontario's
family -based operations provide
By Keith Roulston
He came to tell Ontario pork
producers about his
company's huge 5,000 -sow
units in Saskatchewan but Florian
Possberg ended up praising the
family -farm structure of Ontario's
pork industry.
Possberg, from Big Sky Farms
Inc. in Big Sky, Saskatchewan, told
farmers attending "Recent
Developments in Pork Production"
in Shakespeare, November 29, that
he'd agreed to speak at the
conference on the proviso he could
spend an extra day in Ontario to learn
more about the industry here.
"What I saw yesterday in Ontario
is in my mind what agriculture
should be," said Possberg of his
visits to family pork farms. One of
the farms he'd visited was the 500 -
sow farrow -to -finish operation of
Brad and Diane Boersen of
Sebringville, who also spoke at the
seminar.
Ontario had a healthy farm
community surrounding healthy
towns and villages by comparison to
what he described as the "heart -
wrenching" sight of whole
communities in Saskatchewan
shrivelling up.
"You have something special
here," he told the audience, "and boy
you don't want to losejt."
18 THE RURAL VOICE
Possberg said his 5,000 sow units,
which require an investment of $60
million each, are necessary for the
conditions there because
Saskatchewan doesn't have a
livestock environment. "We've lost
the leadership to run efficient 300-
500 -sow units," he said.
Saskatchewan had been spoiled by
decades of what he termed the
"AAA -syndrome": "April, August
and Arizona". Farmers had come to
expect they could make a living by
growing wheat, working in April to
plant, August to harvest and spending
the winters in Arizona.
Big Sky grew from a smaller
family farm operation, Possberg
Farms Ltd., which started in 1983 as
a 240 -sow, farrow to finish unit. In
1990 he expanded the farm to 600
sows and in 1992 he built a second
600 -sow unit.
But he became convinced that the
family farm structure wasn't the best
way to grow, Possberg said, and so in
1995 he brought in some off -farm
partners and formed Big Sky Farms
Inc. The new company built three -
site operations and built around
2,500 sow units in 1995, 1997 and
1998. Each unit had a breeding,
gestation and farrowing site, a
nursery site with two barns of 4,800
pigs per site and two finishing sites
of 8,000 to 10,000 places each.
This past May construction started
on the first 5,000 -sow unit and in
December a second 5000 -sow unit
began construction. The big units
will help the company reach its goal
of producing two million hogs a year
by 2008, Possberg said.
The company works with rural
communities that are looking to
boost the local economy by getting
one of the big units to locate there,
Possberg explained. "We develop in
communities where we've been
invited to develop. We're there to
save the viability of that
community." Winning a Big Sky unit
means creating 40 jobs in a rural area
where jobs are scarce.
Big Sky spends three years
working with community leaders to
develop a close relationship, he said.
"We need time to get to know each
other — to see if we are right for the
community and if the community is
right for us." It's like a courtship, he
said. "Once we start pouring
concrete, we're married."
Going to 5,000 sow units instead
of 2,500 -sow units means there are
fewer courtships and marriages, he
said.
As well there are construction
savings. He estimated it takes
$300,000 to develop a site for a barn