John Hueging, of Warren, is looking for a young wanna-be farmer to become part of his operation and eventually take over the farm.
One man asks for help to find someone to continue his farming operation near Warren. There appears to be no place in Canada where an organization or simply a process can help a farm operator locate and bring in a young farmer to continue the established farmer’s operation.
John Hueging’s parents came to Canada from Germany in 1952, and in 1977 he took over the farm from his father but as he looks to the future he has no one to inherit the family farm.
“I’m in my early fifties and have two daughters who are in their late twenties who do not want to farm,” said Hueging in a recent interview. “I’m looking for someone who wants to farm but can’t afford to get into it on his own, take him on as a partner and form a transition plan to evolve over 25 to 30 years.”
He said if a family has two boys and their farm is not big enough for two, or a young couple that would like to start a farm but can’t, his operation may be the right choice and the place to start.
With further review of this challenge, Hueging has found no place where people can actually list this opportunity or even find information so they can explore it further. Some states in the United States have programs but he could not seem to find anything in Canada.
The producer won’t list the farm or opportunity with a real estate firm because it will not be a farm sale. Hueging has found all kinds of places to list a farm, but nowhere to receive practical help to bring the producer together with the person who is looking for such an opportunity, and help each other out to achieve separate and collective goals.
Here is the crux of Hueging’s concern. “We’re an aging population and young guys can’t afford to buy farms. I want to live and work on the farm. If my daughters don’t take over the farm I will have to sell it,” he laments. “I have operated this family farm for the last thirty four years and no one in my family wants to take over. I don’t want to sell it and have to move. I want to continue to work on it but don’t want to continue to do full-time work because I need to slowdown a little.”
Hueging says there are some agencies that try but nothing that fits this category. He feels the mentorship program in Manitoba has some merit but thinks they tend to work better with smaller organic market gardening farms and not for the acquisition of large commercial farms.
For any young person to take over an existing farm it takes a fair chunk of change. There must be farmers in this aging population who don’t want to leave the farm, but would be willing to help the young people as long as they had a steady income to support their lifestyle.
“If I find the right person or couple, and help them transfer ownership over the next 20 to 30 years, it will benefit both of us,” said Hueging. “I’ll be the boss and he will be the hired help, and four to five or ten years down the road, he will be the boss and I will be the hired man.”
His farm has 950 acres of cropland that grows anything from soybeans to corn, to all the other locally grown crops in the area. A thousand acres of pastureland, of which 400 acres could be broken up for cereals, 70 beef cows and 300 sheep.
It was a dairy farm until five years ago and now Hueging feels it could support two families with the right management and have endless possibilities. The soil is very good the upland pastureland is only 30 kilometers away. The 950 acres of cropland and 1,000 acres of pastureland are both in separate blocks with no small pieces scattered about.
