Growing crop of young farmers in Manitoba raises hopes for future

When Anastasia Fyk completed highschool and left her household’s farm, she by no means imagined she’d reside there once more.

However after eight years overseas, considerations about local weather change drew her again to western Manitoba and her household’s land northwest of Dauphin, with the objective of discovering a extra sustainable option to produce meals.

“I am engaged on getting again to how we used to farm however with new know-how,” the 33-year-old mentioned.

She’s a part of a rising variety of younger individuals in Manitoba taking over farming, Statistics Canada says.

Information from the recently released 2021 census of agriculture says Manitoba had the highest proportion of farm operators beneath age 35 in Canada — 11.5 per cent of Manitoba’s farmers are in that age vary, in comparison with the nationwide common of 8.6 per cent.

That is up from 2016, when Manitoba additionally had the very best proportion of younger operators, at 10.8 per cent.

Fyk’s household grows buckwheat, wheat, oats and canola.

She practises permaculture, a technique of rising meals that goals to match pure processes to take care of the well being of the soil.

The dangerous impacts of business monoculture farming on the setting involved Fyk, however she additionally noticed potential options in altering the way in which individuals develop meals.

“We might be sequestering much more carbon by doing issues like permaculture … as an alternative of annual agriculture,” she mentioned.

‘We’re nonetheless bleeding farmers’

The most recent statistics exhibiting the rise in younger individuals farming in Manitoba are encouraging, Fyk mentioned, however the sector nonetheless faces many challenges which might be forcing increasingly more individuals out of the enterprise.

“I feel that it is superb that Manitoba does have probably the most younger farmers, however on the identical time, we’re nonetheless bleeding farmers. There’s not practically sufficient farmers, and particularly younger farmers, to fill the hole.”

There have been 34,780 farm operators in Manitoba in 1991 — the primary yr Statistics Canada collected comparable data in its agriculture census. That quantity has declined each census interval since, dropping to 19,465 in 2021.

The variety of farmers beneath 35 in Manitoba dropped to a low of 1,965 in 2011, earlier than climbing in 2016 to 2,175, after which once more to 2,230 within the newest census.

Regardless of the rise within the variety of youthful farmers, the common age of Manitoba farmers continues to grow old, rising from 53 in 2016 to 54 in 2021.

Statistics Canada additionally studies a rise within the proportion of ladies working farms in Manitoba — from 23.8 per cent in 2016 to 26.5 per cent in 2021.

“I feel that is a extremely neat factor, that it isn’t simply, ‘OK … the son goes to take over the farm,'” mentioned Colin Penner, a College of Manitoba farm administration professor.

“It isn’t essentially gender-based anymore.”

These are encouraging indicators in what have been tough instances for Manitoba farmers, who endured a painful drought and grasshopper infestation final summer time, adopted by an prolonged moist spring that delayed seeding.

“This yr, seeding was in contrast to any I’ve ever seen, and I feel in contrast to any that my dad’s ever seen, and he is … been farming for a lot of many years,” mentioned Jamal Abas, 30.

He and his household have 190 breeding cattle on a farm close to Hodgson, in Manitoba’s Interlake area, the place in addition they develop wheat, canola and oats. 

Along with being a full-time farmer, Abas goes to regulation faculty, however farming will all the time be a lifestyle for him, he mentioned.

“It is fairly a sense to be working your cultivator on a bit of land that your granddad and your great-grandparents and your great-uncles and great-aunts cleared with axes and horse-drawn plows,” he mentioned.

“There is a sense, in fact, of satisfaction with that.”

‘I used to be so much happier’

Jake Ayre additionally comes from a protracted line of farmers, stretching again greater than seven generations in the UK, earlier than his household immigrated to Canada in 2002. 

The 25-year-old left his household’s farm close to Minto, in southwestern Manitoba, to go to college in Winnipeg. He had no intention of getting again into the enterprise.

“I used to be working within the metropolis and I used to be discovering myself daydreaming in regards to the farm on a regular basis,” he mentioned.

“I spotted that I used to be so much happier at house, on the farm, and that is one thing I might see myself doing. And it gave me a way of fulfilment.”

Curiosity within the sector appears to have elevated, as indicated by the variety of college students the U of M’s Penner sees in his classroom.

“Our lessons for the final variety of years have been nearly at capability, which has been lots of enjoyable,” he mentioned.

However these younger farmers face challenges. 

Many households bought their farms throughout robust financial instances over the previous couple of many years, and Fyk says most younger individuals going into farming are both taking up household operations or doing small-scale, direct-to-consumer farming.

“I’d say that anyone trying to get into farming as a first-generation farmer, it is actually not a simple process,” she mentioned.

“There’s lots of obstacles in terms of land, in terms of equipment. It is extraordinarily costly. And for any individual who’s by no means farmed, it is an enormous danger to take.”

However she felt a duty to maneuver again — partly due to concern over what would occur to her household’s land if she did not take it over.

“In any other case it will be going into palms that I am unsure would take that essential care of the land,” she mentioned.

“I do know that if I am not the one doing it, I am unsure anyone else would.”