Are smaller farms the way of the future?

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Whether by chance or by choice, farm sizes have quadrupled over the past 40 years. But today we are seeing an increase in small, specialized farms. Can this trend continue?

by RALPH WINFIELD

Many of we older farmers approaching retirement age have seen tremendous changes in farm and machinery sizes. By older, I am referring to that magical age called three score and 10!

When many of us started life on the farm, we had 100 acres, 10 cows, some other livestock and a tractor with a two-furrow plow. The average field size was 10 acres and you could work it in a day. Harvesting was custom-done by a threshing gang or a local entrepreneur with a combine.

The larger farms of 200 acres were much more self-sufficient. They had up to 40 cows and at least two tractors. They had their own haying and forage harvesting equipment and, if sufficient family help was available, they would have a pull-type combine or one of the small self-propelled types that became popular in the early 1960s.

If more than one offspring wanted to farm, another farm was purchased – mostly so that the machinery could be shared by the two brothers, with father still overseeing the operation and possibly operating the now common larger tractor or combine.

Enter the 1980s. The spike in interest rates following the good times of the 1970s put an end to much of this farm consolidation. Many smaller landowners were forced to sell and their farms were acquired locally by the larger family farm units. This brought about a significant increase in the size of fields, tractors and combines.

As expected, some family conflicts did occur, as family members and in-laws attempted to come to a consensus on how the farm should be run and who should be responsible for which activity.

During the late 1970s and early '80s I taught in a two-year farm business management program. While I officially taught the engineering courses, I continued to be drawn into many private and personal discussions about "returning to the home farm."

One of my major points then still holds true today. I strongly urged the students to go out and work for somebody else for at least three years before returning to the home farm. Fortunately, many of them took that advice.

When I see these former students at farm shows or the like, most of them still comment on the good advice they received. Many of them did return to the home farm with a much broader outlook, while some of them stayed in agribusiness.

For myself, I left the home farm in 1958 and went on to college and university. After a 16-year absence, I returned to my in-laws' farm and have never regretted any of these decisions. I returned to farming with a much broader view of agriculture as well as an entirely new set of people skills. I never over-invested in additional land or machinery, but I have watched a tremendous increase in the capitalization of farming.

Many of the 40-cow dairy herds have disappeared from Ontario farms. When I worked for Ontario Hydro in the early 1970s, that was a very common Ontario farm unit size. Other Ontario farms had comparable sized poultry or swine operations. Many had started the switch to only field crop operations.

Today the farm size has quadrupled. Is it by chance or by choice? To justify the investment in a relatively new set of field-going machinery, it has to cover many hundred acres to bring the per acre cost down.

I remember very well when a six-row planter was really big. Today, many planters are 12- to 24-row units. They just do not fit in a 10- or 20-acre field.

Many of the 100- to 200-acre farms are being "rolled" in with larger units, either by change of ownership or by rental/sharecropping arrangements. Many older farmers and many startup farmers are pulling back from the costs of owning and operating larger machinery and the support equipment that must accompany the large planting and harvesting systems.

In contrast, we are also seeing a significant increase in small, specialized farms, such as market garden operations providing food for the 100-mile diet. This type of farming venture is in direct contrast to the large commercial operations. The machinery investment can be minimized while the labour input goes way back up to the level that I remember inputting as a small child.

Machinery and land bases have increased significantly in the last 30 years in order to control the input cost per unit of output (i.e. dollars per bushel or acre of corn, beans or wheat).

Can this trend continue with the significant increase in the cost of land and machinery?

Will we see more and more small farm units providing us with local, fresh food?

My crystal ball indicates a "yes" if and only if we can train shoppers to look and select local product. Food safety and freshness must be factored into the price. BF

Agricultural engineer Ralph Winfield farms at Belmont in Elgin County.