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well good afternoon guys I hope you're
having a great day I am here with my dad
Gordon say hi hi and we are here on the
Saskatchewan prairies if you guys saw my
last video you probably got a little
taste of what life is like in these
parts and my dad briefly touched on kind
of his experience with farming but I
wanted to do a video that's a bit more
in-depth for fellow city folk who don't
actually know what goes on behind the
scenes when it comes to the production
of their food and what a farmer has to
do how you even become one so today I
wanted to interview my dad about what it
takes to be a farmer in Canada
all right dad so as we mentioned in the
last video you've been a farmer all your
life right right started farming
basically a twelve yes doing a lot of
main jobs then hauling all the grain
from the combine driving tractor all
them things yeah cuz your dad was a farm
yes and you basically worked when he
passed away you inherited the whole farm
right yeah well I gradually took it over
from little at a time yeah and as you've
told me in the past it was usually a lot
of smaller farmers but now it's kind of
become almost these like corporations
oh yeah corporation yeah when did you
sell your land how old were you
approximately about sixty yeah and so
most farmers like go until they drop
yeah I don't approve on probably yes but
what finally made you just say like I'm
done I want to sell all this ready for
something else well I was doing
everything myself I had cattle and raise
cattle
how many quarters a landed you I had
about eight quarters and the hundreds
had hundred cow herd which meant he has
a hundred cows and you're working every
day all year round yeah I liked it when
I did it but I think it's time to make a
change yeah and so basically after that
you kind of took a little bit of a break
we did some trout
yes temples we did and then about six
years ago you decided to move out here
yes on this homestead that we are on now
and now you're actually still
technically working but you're working
for a larger farm yes yes yeah so would
you say that you enjoy that better than
working on your own or well yeah it's
enjoyable the guys I work with they're
good to work with I don't have to make
any decisions I don't have to plan
anything I don't have to pay the bills
all the expense of farming so it's an
easy job
oh yeah no stress just you know what I
do is easy and it's it's it's good
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all right so as we are on our way dad
what would you say is your favorite
thing about farming and what is the
biggest challenge that you've
experienced oh the favorite thing that
has been independent your own boss and
you set your own schedule you have you
have to get your work done to be
successful but if you want to take the
day off you can take the day off you
don't have to ask anybody the drawback
is very expensive to get into expand
also all the risk uncertainty you put
all this money into putting the crop in
and you do not know whether you're gonna
get anything else you can get frost you
can get hailed out you know dried out it
can be dry but speaking of expenses I
think that's actually as somebody who's
not super well-versed in farming is the
craziest thing to me because now that
you work for a larger farmer and you
tell me like how much they spend on new
machinery or how much it costs to put a
crop in like it's literally in the
hundreds of thousands of dollars right
well with this farmer it's in the
millions
yeah the millions they spend every year
so when you are farming you know
approximately ten years ago or so and
you had a quarters of land which is a
lot for one person but what would you
say would be like your expenses every
year well my night I just estimated on
that I've twelve hundred acres if you
kind of estimate a hundred dollars nacre
was a hundred twenty thousand which you
know more or less now like
I can't even imagine they're guessing
what is way way more and to be a farmer
it takes so much machinery usually but
what would you say is like you know how
much would a combine cost how much would
a cedar cost and how much like wood uh I
guess semi with trailers cost well I
googled it what a case IH combine this
and they had base price three hundred
thirty thousand to four hundred eighty
thousand but then you have to add on all
the options will be a hundred or two
hundred thousand more and semi serve a
huge amount to probably yeah three three
four hundred thousand depending on how
fancy they are so basically one of the
biggest differences that I've noticed
from the conversations we've had in the
past is that with your generation it was
usually the sons took over the family
farm and so this expensive land and all
this equipment would get passed down
generation to generation and then the
son would buy more land yeah but you had
a base to add to yeah you weren't
starting from nothing
yeah but now you got families like this
where I sure as hell am not going to be
a farmer and there's you know some young
guys that don't want to be farmers which
I mean is their choice they shouldn't be
forced into it and just with the
expenses also going up it's really
weeding out you know more and more
smaller farm oh yeah
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so here we are guys in an actual
farmyard a very big farmyard we're gonna
give you guys a little tour around
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alright so can you tell us what this
whole operation is like what is this
thing this is a green auger but here
it's used to auger fertilizer from
there's fertile it granular fertilizer
and all these bins to all this
fertilizers auger into semi it goes to
the field and this used when you're
seeding like nitrogen phosphate sulphur
potash everything
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and so what have we got over here
it's a Harrow bar and what does that do
well when that's all down and spread out
it spreads and breaks up the straw okay
well it just so it spreads the trash and
the straw over to make everything more
even the store grain then they're all
hopper bins and so when we're hauling
here to in the fall we drive up on this
here scale it goes to that tube that
goes along the bong up and top and they
open up a certain bin and it fills the
bin and then when we're hauling out they
can open up a bin with the bong it goes
up that tube on top falls down these
tubes here and goes into the truck and
they got the digital scale that they can
see exactly how much you have in the
truck
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so it kicked out rain and snow up so the
green boats down here up that to across
the top and dogs down in to death
so our trucks like this for primarily
hauling grain yes yeah and also to be
able to drive like a semi you have to
have a class 1a license right yes when
did you get your class 1a
oh that's years ago I can remember so a
long time ago yes a long time so did you
find that challenging or you had kind of
already been doing it before you even
got the license well I actually did
drive one just a little bit on the farm
before I got my license I got one then
then I went and got my license yeah and
how does crop insurance work like I've
heard of that term lots of people go
around selling crop insurance but is
that something that you ever got or
believed in does it actually work I had
it for the first few years I fart but
then you collect once the premium goes
up yeah it sort of guarantees you how
many bushels an acre but in general I
think it's safe to say that farming is
not for the faint of heart
no it's a very risky sort of business
and you have to be able to stomach some
bad years yes you're gonna have some bad
years but at the end of the day it's
like you know that this is what it takes
at this point in time like farmers you
guys I think deserve big rounds of
applauses for not only feeding the
planet but for you know the crazy long
hours it takes the kind of risks
involved and it's just a much harder job
than I think people realize so for
anybody who might want to be a farmer
the crazy people who are interested what
kind of advice would you give to them
having had that profession all your life
well I'm old school so I wouldn't
recommend farming unless they have
somebody a dad or company that they can
just gradually get into but to start
completely on your own it's too
expensive
all right well I hope you guys enjoyed
this video and a big thank you to my
problem giving us some insight about
farm life here in Saskatchewan let me
know what you guys thought in the
comments down below and Dad anything
else you'd like to say no no comment
oh I all at one time you don't have to
be crazy to be a farmer but it would
help yeah that's for sure crazy and
stupid that's just a joke farmers always
say you don't have to be stupid or crazy
but it would help yeah yeah with
different ones like you're not
guaranteed anything yeah you gotta like
it if you like it well then that's fine
but it's not for it's not for everybody
just like other jobs they're not for
everybody alright I hope you guys
enjoyed this video and I guess the next
time I'll be seeing you is back in
Toronto so thank you so much for hanging
out with us and keep being your own kind
of beautiful bye guys bye
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