By Kevin Hursh, P.Ag.
Kevin Hursh is one of the country’s leading agricultural commentators. He is an agrologist, journalist, and farmer. Kevin and his wife Marlene run Hursh Consulting & Communications based in Saskatoon. They also own and operate a farm near Cabri in southwest Saskatchewan growing a wide variety of crops. Kevin writes for a number of agricultural publications and serves as executive director for the Canary Seed Development Commission of Saskatchewan and the Inland Terminal Association of Canada (ITAC).
For many years, a longtime friend and colleague has helped my wife and me with seeding and harvest. This year, he was not able to come because his wife was very ill. As a result, the farm ended up with a total of six employees. That’s in addition to my wife and me, the owner of the farm corporation.
Having six employees sounds like a big operation. We are not. Time per employee ranged from one extended weekend for the shortest stay up to a couple of weeks for the longest.
Our three boys each live in the city, a three-hour drive from the farm, and they have their own careers and family obligations. Our youngest son is a school teacher and doesn’t have any kids, so he has the ability to do a bit more farming.
A retired mechanic friend was a big help this season with seeding activities and some equipment maintenance after seeding. Another friend with limited farm experience was eager to learn and ran a combine for a while. Our nephew, a professional welder who lives less than an hour from the farm, came to help after his workdays and on a couple of weekends. He was a great asset for keeping equipment going.
It’s great to have the help, but everyone has different aptitudes and a different level of experience. Two of our sons are comfortable running the seeding outfit once everything is set up. Everyone can run the land roller, although not all are comfortable putting it in and out of transport.
Everyone can operate the older combine, but only one son ran the newer one before the hydraulic drive pump on the header went down and the manufacturer was unable to come up with a replacement. Some can handle the old 13-gear tandem grain trucks. Others haven’t mastered that skill.
With so many different levels of knowledge and experience, things can go wrong. Pressed for time, I gave my nephew a crash course on the old combine. He’s good with equipment and ran a combine a number of years ago. I combined up the field, explaining controls and how everything works. He jumped in the seat and combined on the way back. He seemed to be doing fine, so I jumped out and left him on his own.
I never told him about the rotor speed control on the console. If it gets bumped or you inadvertently turn it rather than the reel speed control, the rotor speed won’t be correct. With so many things to watch and think about, he paid little attention to the grain going in the tank. We ended up with a few hundred bushels of maple peas with a lot of splits due to the rotor speed being too high.
He felt bad, but it was the instructor at fault, and of all the things that can go wrong, this was pretty minor.
A friend from the city moved an old tandem truck across the field. This didn’t involve much gear shifting, and I’d told him about the operation of air brakes, but he was baffled when he turned the key off and the engine wouldn’t die. I hadn’t told him about the fuel shutoff.
I haven’t tried to train anyone else on the sprayer. There’s a lot of stuff to know, and it’s important to get it right.
Like many farms, ours has a key person issue. This goes well beyond running all the equipment. Crop selection, variety choice, agronomy, marketing, finances, crop insurance. Our boys discuss these things with me, but there’s a lot to know. Without me, the key person, it would be difficult to carry on.
My wife worries about what to do with the farm should I suddenly be sidelined by disability or death. She takes care of all the bookkeeping and understands that aspect better than me, but she would have trouble managing all the other parts.
We’ve had discussions about how to go about renting out the land or perhaps forming a joint venture with a neighbor when I am no longer able to continue. The boys all have some affinity for the farm, but none of them want to make it their life’s work at this point.
When I show someone new how to run a combine, I usually tell them it isn’t a case of “if something will go wrong” with the machine, it’s only a case of “when.” The same is true for the key person.
I have farming neighbors younger than me trying to figure out when to schedule hip replacement surgery. I have neighbors older than me still going strong. Some are successfully transitioning to the next generation, and they aren’t the key person anymore. Sometimes a relatively young key person is sidelined by injury.
Who is your key person or persons? What’s the plan should they suddenly not be able to continue?