Josiah Schut: Dairy Farmer of the Mountains

A while ago I had a great conversation with a friend of mine.  Despite a few technical difficulties, I had the chance to learn more about his life on the family farm in British Columbia.  Josiah Schut is my good friend, my most challenging academic competitor in college, prankster extraordinaire, and much more.  Today I'd like to introduce you to Josiah, the dairy farmer.

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Who is Josiah?

Josiah is twenty-one years old and operates the family dairy farm in Salmon Arm, B.C. with his dad and the rest of the family.  He grew up on that farm and returned to it after completing three years of education at Olds College (keep an eye out for a future blog to find out about Josiah's time in college).  While Josiah and his siblings had their own chores to do growing up on the farm, he says, "we maybe weren't quite as involved [in the farm] right from birth, maybe as some farm kids were, but definitely expected to help with chores.  We had our daily thing with the calves and we were definitely allowed and expected to get out and help, but we weren't necessarily driving silage truck from the time we were seven years old, you know?"  As a boy, Josiah was also involved in 4-H for 4 years in his teens, which he really enjoyed.

Dairy Farming in British Columbia

It's time to introduce you, the readers, to the farm we have been referencing.  The farm, which is about 350 acres in size, is located in a valley between two mountains, which as Josiah says, "that's the case for most farmers in B.C."  The Salmon River Runs through the property, which allows the Schut family to irrigate their crops.  Josiah and his younger brother, Micah, run the farm with their dad, and their mom and sister, Nicola also help out. The farm also employs another four full-time (or close to full-time) employees.  They run about 200 cows through the milking parlor every day.  Currently, there are about 450 animals on the farm, including all of the calves and heifers.

Josiah's favourite part of working on the farm is the variety of tasks that he encounters.  He enjoys the fact that "you can work in the fields with the tractors, you can fix the equipment, you work with the cows."  However, he did pin down working with the cows as one of his favourite tasks: "I like working with the cows a lot and that kind of ends up being the thing that I do the most, is the breeding, and the animal health end of things.  And yeah, just moving them and organizing which groups they're in and stuff."

As a young farmer, Josiah acknowledges that he does face some challenges, although none could be identified as a big challenge.  Mainly, he would like the opportunity to experience more and learn how to do more tasks on the farm.  However, with the farm being fairly large, he often ends up doing jobs that are more labour intensive, which he already knows how to do and for which he doesn't need training.  He does not get to experience the business end of the farm, since his dad takes care of the business decisions, phone calls, financials, etc.  There are several opportunities that Josiah has as a young farmer, though.  He likes being able to look what might be improved and having the ability to use technology to work towards improvements.

I was curious to know whether there are any major differences between agriculture in Alberta and agriculture in B.C.  Who better to ask than someone who grew up in B.C. and attended school in Alberta?  Josiah tells me, "it's a different world between the two provinces."  He says that there is a lot more land in Alberta, but that it is generally poorer quality that the land in B.C. (judging by organic matter content).  British Columbian farmers typically have more access to irrigation, as well, so although Alberta farms are larger in land base, the soil quality is a major benefit for those in B.C.  Josiah also tells me that Alberta has a culture that "is very much more so geared towards farming...B.C. is definitely more of an urban-minded province, if you will."  He points to political issues to prove his point, saying that politicians in Alberta are more prone to think of how decisions impact farmers than politicians in B.C. are.

Looking to the Future

As with all family farms, the desires and plans of all siblings must be considered when discussions of the future arise.  While Josiah has finished his schooling and is working on the farm full-time, Micah is still finishing up his education at Olds College and will join Josiah in working on the farm as soon as he is done.  Nicola is currently studying to be an animal health technician at a Thompson Rivers University in B.C.  At the moment, it is unclear whether she will have a larger part in the farm once she returns, although she has expressed interest in the farm.

Josiah's goal for the future is to always continue learning, and to keep from getting stuck in a routine on the farm.  He would like to expose himself to situations where he needs to make new decisions, in an effort to keep learning how best to run the farm.  He says, "if I were to get stuck in a rut...on our farm, I would potentially be interested in maybe going to work for a different farm where I'd be given different responsibilities, just so that I'm always exposed to growing myself as a young farmer."  As for the immediate future, Josiah will be travelling to Indonesia this coming January to participate in YWAM for 6 months, as he sees the opportunity to grow personally in this adventure.  The experience "will take [him] away from the farm for a bit, but once [he's] back from that, it will be back to full-time farming."

Quick Facts

I thought it would be fun to ask Josiah a few rapid fire questions to get his perspective on some highly important topics.  Here are his answers:

• Josiah's favourite breed of dairy cow: Holsteins
• The province with the best scenery: B.C.
• Josiah's least favourite chore: Working with cows that have metritis (a really stinky infection) because, "farming's a smelly job, but certain smells are just not pleasant, regardless."
• Josiah's coolest farm-related injury*: He got kicked in the chest by a cow and it left a hoof-shaped mark on his chest. 
• In Josiah's humble opinion, the best farm ever is his: "I like mine the best.  'Cause it's mine."
• The one thing Josiah wants people to know:  "Farmers care. We care about our animals.  We care about producing good quality food for the people."

*Please note that no farmer likes to get hurt and we do our best to avoid injury.  However, every farmer has a few interesting work wounds with cautionary tales behind them.  Josiah has several interesting injury stories about both himself and his brother.  Unfortunately, most of them are not farm-related, so they didn't make it into this blog.

Landon Driedger, Part 2: The Man of Many Hats

When I began thinking of this blog series, I originally was only going to interview farmers.  However, as I thought about the many different people required to make the agriculture industry run smoothly, I began to realise that this blog would need to encompass a much larger group of people.  I would also need to talk to mechanics, veterinarians, weed inspectors, ag retailers, and more.  Today, I would like to introduce you to one such person - or rather, I will re-introduce you to him, since I have already introduced him as a farmer.

In Part 1 of Landon Driedger's story, I introduced you to a young rancher looking to take over the family ranch in La Crete, Alberta.  Now, I'd like to introduce you to Landon's off-farm job, which allows him to bring home some extra money, as well as to keep learning and working in his local agriculture industry.

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Overview

Earlier this year, Landon started an off-farm job working for the county as assistant agricultural fieldman and weed inspector.  Although the county is the biggest in terms of land area, there are only two members of the local ag department: the ag fieldman, and Landon.  Because this county is in the northern part of Alberta, it is what might be a called a newer agricultural area.  A lot of land in the county has been cleared for cropping in the past decade or two, so the ag department is looking to prevent problems that have come up in older farming communities, especially in terms of weeds and other pests.  It's a challenging job, but Landon certainly seems to enjoy it.

Landon's favourite part of the job is getting to talking with farmers, although he notes it's not always fun to talk with farmers: "We often get a lot of complaints, but a lot of them have real concerns and are looking to work with you and it's not often about your job that you're talking about.  You're talking about the farming community as a whole, and other issues and what's going on in the farming world.  So I would say just interacting with farmers and getting their perspective.  It's a lot of different opinions and you can learn a lot that way."

Assistant Agricultural Fieldman

As the assistant ag fieldman, Landon wears more hats than I can count.  When I asked him for a job description, he began listing more jobs than I thought could fit into a summer.  It was quite the overwhelming list.  Allow me to share some of it with you.

As assistant ag fieldman, Landon helps oversee the following jobs:

• flood control
• putting in new ditches where there is new land
• seeding grass into new ditches
• coordinating mowing and spraying contractors to complete work in the county ditches
• checking for and controlling weeds (more about that in the next section)
• getting professionals in to remove problematic beaver dams
• removing trees along roadways
• coordinating the local ag fair and trade show
• coordinating events like crop plot tours and special speakers
• delivering and maintaining the irrigation pump and mile of pipe that farmers rent to fill dugouts, etc.
• performing crop disease checks (ex. fusarium and clubroot)
• performing pest checks (ex. grasshopper and wheat midge)

 And that's just what he came up with off the top of his head from working at the job for a few months!

Weed Inspector

During the summers, Landon is also the county weed inspector.  As weed inspector, Landon drives the county roads, searching the ditches and farmers' fields for weed problems.  If the problem is in the ditch, he can simply spray the weed with the appropriate chemical.  However, if the weed is on a farmer's land, or in a "do not spray" zone (which would be beside an organic farm), then Landon needs to discuss control options with the farmer: "we discuss how we can control it within the fields and I have to talk with the farmer to come to an agreement."

One of the biggest challenges Landon faces as weed inspector is dealing with weed problems on organic farms.  Landon tells me, "in the last five years there's been a really sharp incline in organic farmers."  Due to the recent opening of a lot of crop land, "organic farming has worked because there's not necessarily weeds coming into these new fields and on the margins, just natural [referring to native plants] weeds that you had to plow down."  A few years later, though, weed problems are beginning to show up.  Due to dry conditions, thistles have begun to come in and take over, as well as other weeds that generally would not be a problem with conventional farming.  And the problems are not just on new land, either.  Some organic farmers are renting land that was cleared several decades ago, and now those fields are getting new weeds, many of them noxious (like scentless chamomile).

I would like to note that this blog does not intend to disparage organic farming.  I am simply acknowledging the challenges that come with organic farming, particularly in regard to weed control.  Please look for future posts to hear from the organic farmers.

I asked Landon to explain a bit about why certain weeds (those on the noxious and prohibited noxious weed lists as legislated by the provincial government) are so bad.  Some are rather pretty.  What's wrong with having one or two in a little flower bed?

Landon's response was too good to summarize: "Noxious weeds are on the list for a reason.  They are definitely a bigger nuisance than your annual weeds.  Annual weeds are the ones that pop up during the summer and you can easily kill them with spraying.  Noxious weeds, we can learn from the U.S., or earlier farming communities where these weeds have come in and taken over.  One weed, for instance, scentless chamomile can produce up to 300,000 seeds, just in one summer, and if they're all blown out, that's a lot of weeds that can be spread if you miss that one plant.  And let's say you're plowing your field and you drag it all over your field, that's a lot of weeds that are coming up in the next years and that's just from one plant.  And then those plants all make hundreds of thousands more seeds."

Landon went on to explain that some plants like thistle can grow underground, so just cutting them off above ground won't kill the plant.  In comparison to relatively benign weeds like foxtail barley, which can be easily controlled, plants on the noxious or prohibited noxious weeds list come back each year with a vengeance.  Weed problems can "decrease crop yield and increase chemical costs or labour, as a whole, just to control the weeds.  And that's just noxious weeds.  Once you get into prohibited noxious, their legislation is to kill all of them on sight, wherever it is - exterminate -  and those weeds are usually really hard to kill without very strong chemicals.  Those types of weeds can destroy a whole habitat or ... destroy a whole field.  You can't do anything."

Balancing Ranch Life and Work Life

Of course, I had to ask Landon how he balances his off-farm job and his work on the ranch.  He told me that he would like to be able to help more on the ranch, but the job does allow him to be close to home to have input and help out as he can.  He is able to help with calving for two months in the spring, and he works on the ranch on weekends.  Landon also gets to help with the big events, like vaccinating, branding and mustering.  The job also allows him to continue learning: "it's been a good experience this summer working more on the crop side.  But there's multiple other jobs that are included in just working with farmers, mostly crop farmers, and seeing how they run things.  I grew up beef, so this has been a good summer of learning."

When Landon goes home from work, he is able to take what he has learned and apply it on the ranch.  In particular, he told me about implementing information he gained on seeding rates and weed control.  He is also able to take his perspective as a producer to his work with the county, which is especially beneficial when he needs to discuss a weed problem with a farmer.  Rather than going into the conversation saying, "you have to clean up your weeds today," Landon is able to see where the farmer is coming from and help the farmer to find the best way to control the problem in a reasonable amount of time.

Although he enjoys his job with the county, Landon notes that he really would like to be a full-time rancher: "The perfect thing would be just to work on the ranch full time and have a steady cash flow, but that's not going to happen, unless I would be full owner of the farm.  Yeah, it's kind of tough, but we'll get there, where hopefully I can be full time on the farm."

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I hope you have enjoyed getting to know Landon with me.  Check back again soon to read about more awesome people in the agriculture industry!