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| The Sign Rocks and the entrance to the Bos Farm |
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| Our Family-The Reason for everything |
OUR HISTORY: Some are born into farming, it’s in their blood and
the thought of doing anything else is almost unthinkable. It’s something that has been in them since
the very beginning and will remain in them till the very end. My husband, Patrick Bos, is a good example of
one with such an affliction. From the
time he was big enough to ride on the toboggan behind the tractor while his
father did the chores, a farmer was all he ever wanted to be. Growing up Patrick helped his parents with
their beef and grain operation and at the age of 14 began milking cows after
school and on weekends at a neighbouring dairy farm. After high school he completed his
Agricultural production diploma at Olds
College
My own love of agriculture was cultivated in quite a
different way from that of Patrick’s. I
was born and raised a town girl. It
wasn’t until 1993 I began my agricultural career with Alberta Agriculture Food
and Rural Development and Lacombe’s Field
Crop Development
Center
We were married in 1997 at the age of 22 and with
only two beat-up old vehicles and 14 cows to our names we began to pursue the
succession of the family farm. We both
loved farming, the work, the land, the animals, and the space and wanted that lifestyle
for ourselves and for our future family.
When we first started farming our main goal was
simply to purchase the farm and to make it lucrative enough to enable both of
us to work and raise a family there. This
was just one of a series of goals we had set for ourselves and overtime our
goals became both broader and more specialized.
When we started the processing facility the focus of our goals had
changed a bit from just thinking about what the farm could do for us, to
instead seeing what it could do for other producers and the industry as a
whole. The facility would not only
stabilize our own farm but give other young farmers struggling to find a viable
farming enterprise the opportunity to get into milking goats as well. Both of these goals have been realized to
various degrees and our goal now is to grow our business, diversify a bit more
and increase its efficiency and stability.
Another major goal right now is to grow the business big enough to
enable us to afford more hired help. We
have just one full time and one seasonal employee at this time and that makes
it difficult for us to leave the farm and Patrick and I are often stretched
between many different areas and required to work a lot of odd hours. Having more hired help would enhance our
quality of life and give us more time for our young and growing family. Expanding our farm’s boundaries through
agriculture and food awareness with the people we encounter has been an ongoing
process since we bought the farm and continues to be an important goal for us
as our operation evolves.
What problems have you faced and overcome?
We have encountered and overcome numerous problems
in our venture to take over the farm and make it viable. First was the problem of how to make the farm
viable enough on the land we had available to achieve the lifestyle we wanted
for ourselves and our family. It wasn’t
easy to come up with a feasible plan to afford the farm and maintain a big
enough profit margin to allow one or both of us to work on the farm without an
outside job. The face of farming in our
area had changed and land prices had escalated due to European immigration. As
a result the family farm was surrounded by a powerhouse of supply management
and whatever plan was undertaken it was apparent that the farms land base would
most likely be unable to grow. Taking a
bit of a risk by venturing into a relatively untried market by transforming our
farm into a dairy operation was our response to this problem. Our decision was at the end of the story a
good one but it was not without tremendous trials that kept us struggling to
survive as the plant we shipped to ran into financial difficulty and eventually
declared bankruptcy walking away from us.
This event brought about our second
hurdle- adding stability to our farm.
Our solution to this problem was through the addition of a CFIA processing
facility. Then there was the challenge
of learning everything about an industry we knew nothing about. Our solution came in mainly two forms. Education, by working briefly in a cheese
plant and then renting a facility for six weeks to make our own cheese and get
a feel for the process. Secondly an agreement between a larger B.C. based
company and ourselves to co-pack a portion of their Alberta ,
Winnipeg and Saskatchewan
Patrick’s
parents were a vital part of helping the succession of the family farm occur
and they continue to be an integral part of our operation. Patrick’s parents
allowed us to farm along side them in the early years and were very supportive
as we tried to work out the farm finances and change the farm in ways to suit
ourselves. When we bought our cows it
wasn’t a big or shocking change for the farm.
When we came to them for advice and approval when we were looking at
getting into dairy goats they were a little skeptical but after looking into it
more with us gave us their stamp of approval.
We rented a house a mile away from the farm and Patrick’s parents
suffered through the first year with us while our learning curve was steep and
we realized goats were much more clever than our cows and spent the day’s just
devising ways to escape from their pens so they could eat Patrick’s mothers
rose garden down to the dirt and all her cedars to their trunks on Sundays
while we all were away. When the company
we milked for got into financial difficulties they allowed us to pay off our
feed bill with them over time and when it was time to build the plant the stood by us every step of the way. Now life is busier than ever and they are still here everyday to help us with jobs on the farm and most importantly with helping to raise our four beautiful children.
