What is Rural?

I spent 3 days in Regina this March at the 2024 annual convention for the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, or SARM. I have been a councilor for 8 years now in the RM of Kindersley, aka RM 290. There are 294 municipalities in Saskatchewan. Many of them may have fewer people living inside the boundaries than their official municipality number. Once a year, representatives from each RM are invited to Saskatoon or Regina, depending on the year, to vote on resolutions, voice their ratepayers concerns directly to the premier and his cabinet ministers, price out a new grader or mower, and pack every seat of the city's steak houses and beer parlours.

SARM is old, and I don't mean its 129 year history. Of the 1,300 odd people attending at delegates, many, probably most, are over 60. If the average age of a farmer in 2023 is 56, your elected RM councilor is likely older. There are a lot of hearing aids, bad knees and a burning distrust of the NDP that most younger urban voters can't parse. Lorne Calvert left power before the financial crisis of 2008 and more people are worried about communism than what happened with the Global Transportation Hub scandal during the Brad Wall era.

So, what does rural mean in Saskatchewan? The open space of rural living generally connotes freedom, it means small government, it means concerns about agriculture are front and centre, and lauds self-directed stewardship. As a councilor I know it also means making sure we have systems in place to stop people from doing dumb, illegal, or dangerous things. Individuality yes, but legally entrenched property rights as well. This isn't to say that rural life means you have to be a loaner. Concerns over a vanishing way of life suggest to me that it is community and lifestyle that rural folks want to hold on to. Rather than the suburban post-war boom with picket fences and single income households it's more about the one room school houses, and smaller mixed farms that consume more of their own farms production rather than the big box landscape of modern grocery stores and parking lots. Bigger families, manual labour, dirt roads. This is rural for the baby boomer generation, and those who lived on farms, or at least have memories of a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle or cousin and that lifestyle. 

Let's consider what rural is through the lens of health care. It is the number one concern for an ageing population, and, despite 40% of provincial tax dollars going towards it, health care is in a very rough state in the province of Saskatchewan. We have retention problems for doctors and nurses, especially in smaller rural areas, and we have well trained paramedics ferrying patients on day long trips to urban centres for kidney dialysis or imaging due to lack of population density. You might complain about wait times in Saskatoon or Regina, but you still have to get to a hospital before that clock starts ticking. Everyone has an issue at some stage of the care process. Enter a figure long gone, the ‘Country Doctor’. One person responsible for their community's needs. Lifelong retention, patients medical history from birth to death, always home, practical, no nonsense, knows the area and the area's ills. No administration or bureaucracy, just the opinion of the community he serves. An artifact that many pin their idealized image of rugged individualism on, one that speaks to all the values of rural life. Independent in a way, but close knit community-first ties as well. You might hate your neighbour, but when you neighbour is the only one with a working stove or extra dozen eggs, you set those differences aside. Much like the one room schoolhouse, you make things work with what you have around. Now I'm talking like I was born in the early 50's instead of the 80's.

For me, rural is real, but for the generation whose great grandparents had a farm, but sold it or retired before the grandkids got a combine ride, it looks much different. If we want to uphold the best parts of rural living we have to make small towns places that are not only cheaper to live and less hectic, but welcoming, tolerant, and as culturally vibrant as possible. In an age where remote work is more common than ever, people need a reason to embrace the best parts of small town life. And half a beef cut cut and wrapped for 5 bucks a pound isn’t bad either.

Regenerative Practices

What is regenerative agriculture? Like any term that enters the mainstream and attempts to quickly define or explain a very complicated process, “regenerative” agriculture is a broad concept without any definition, and is the subject of much debate by farmers, politicians, activists, and a large swath of the general public. 

To regenerate suggests  revitalization, or growth. A return to wholeness, perhaps. Some people weaponize this term; if agriculture is not regenerative, it must be destructive, or be a degenerative process. 

Some people link “zero-till” to the term regenerative…in simple terms this is planting a seed into ground without “turning” the soil. Minimal soil disturbance results in less erosion by wind and heat, preserving more moisture for seed of all types. In Saskatchewan, people have been using low disturbance methods since the 1980’s. A revolution for low moisture climates like the Canadian prairies, zero-till came hand in hand with increased pesticides use to manage weeds, as working the soil preserved moisture and undisturbed topsoil space for seeds and weeds alike. Is this practice more regenerative than much of the previous century? Is it less regenerative than pre-agricultural society? A great question, but, as Norm Macdonald said, “Someones gotta feed them hogs”.

Some practices that we implement as good stewards of the soil: 

• Zero-till seeding.

• Annual soil sampling. Including, but not limited to, macro and micro nutrient levels, CEC, or Cation Exchange Capactiy and Organic matter.

• Live remote updates on subsoil moisture levels during the growing season. 

• Variable rate fertilizer applications, variable rate chemical applications. 

• Wide plant rotations. We have a 4-6 year rotation with 6-8 different crops over the course of the year. 

• A team of specialists monitoring disease and providing the best solutions to each years unique challenges. 

Transition planning

I’m two for three today on fertilizer haulers feeling left out, ignored, disrespected and generally made to feel like they had no voice on the family farm. The third guy just sat in his truck and didn’t bother sweeping out, so my average could have been higher. One guy was early thirties, the other early fifties. Both had tried making inroads at various points, but parents, uncles, aunts or neighbors made that first quarter section or dozen head of cattle impossible to attain. That all important financial and emotional toehold that would have given them a start in the family business.

Depressingly, the younger of the two, who was also a CPA but wanted to farm, had tried using a transition planner, but to no avail. Documents sat on a counter for months. He was told that if he had children, that would prove he was committed to the business. Maybe not the best line to lead with when searching for that special someone in your life…

Our family recently ‘completed’ (although it never really finishes), a transition plan for our farm. Transition, continuity, handing-off, passing-down, corporate restructuring, all words that mean some sort of plan for dealing with major changes in the goals and day to day operations of a farm. Usually, this means an older generation becoming less active in the decision making and risk taking aspect of the operation. Rather than worrying about the price of wheat and urea, passive income (and your accountant may disagree with that term) from rent, dividends etc. provide a retirement package for the baby boomers. For me, I get an overqualified errand boy who also runs the new sprayer, and free food and coffee all for rock bottom prices. That’s right, for the low low price of management position in an industry based on fertilizer cartels and jetstreams, you too can leverage your parents' twilight years into cheap labour and calories. Link to course in bio. 

So what is transition planning?

With so many slippery terms I’ve already used here, it might be best to discuss what it isn’t. 

It is not:

• Avoiding difficult topics.

• Seeing what happens when the secret second will is revealed after a parent dies.

• Denying anyone with a financial or emotional stake in the operation a seat at the table. 

• Working without timelines and expectations. 

• Taking care of things yourself. You might have a financial planner, a hostage negotiator, a lawyer, and a mystic in your immediate family circle, but there's a good chance one of those people put dog crap in the other one's shoes 20 or 30 years ago. Don’t save a few thousand dollars here or there when you're moving assets in the 7 figures around. 

Throughout the year and half process we have many setbacks, and delays. We revisited issues that we thought had been dealt with, and sent dozens of emails about the same topic to accountants, advisors, lawyers, and bankers. Some of those emails even went to the correct people. 

Another disclaimer: every farm is different. The challenges we face and the successes our transition had will be very different from any other farm. I’m more guilty than most of living in my own ag-bubble…I haven’t spoken to many others about this process, but since going through it I try to make it a topic of conversation when the mood strikes. 

I’d be happy to share with you the names of the people we worked with, especially our continuity planner. We were lucky enough to have someone with a deep well of empathy and tenacity. I’m very lucky my family is as fair, courteous, and honest as they are. I much prefer this story to the ones I got from the gentlemen who graciously supplied our farm with N for our next crop.