Land is a finite resource. Arable land, land for agriculture, is even more restricted. Rich, fertile soils are not only a small percentage of the land base but also costly. So, if you’re a young farmer with an expanding farm like me, how do you get more land?
There are two main options; buy more land or lease it. Buying more land is not currently an option for our farm, and I have no desire to add another mortgage. Leasing is also difficult as we need to compete with cash crop operations that have more flexibility. Since our only crops are lambs and forage to feed said lambs, we would need longer-term leases that cover at least five years. From previous experiences, it takes two years to grow a viable forage crop here which is a hefty investment in a lease situation.
It’s interesting to note that the number of acres in production has actually declined from a high in 1966 of 174.1 million acres1 when it was “fence row to fence row.” In the last census, 153.7 million acres are being farmed (2021). Overgrown land exists in many parts of this country, land that was once cleared for production was left to go fallow and rewild for a range of reasons.
If buying and leasing are not currently an option, there is also a more labour-intensive third idea, reclaim it. There are roughly 20 million acres that could be farmed in some way. It’s not the easy option, or even affordable depending on how long those acres have been fallow. And some of those acres never should have been in production in the first place so careful evaluation is needed.
Starting Somewhere
With limited options, we turned to our own land. Out of the roughly 170 acres we own, 65 acres are currently useable in some form, either as pasture or hay fields. Historical records show this farm was granted in the 1820s. We know it was a small dairy operation in the mid-20th century before transitioning to beef and eventually horses by 2010. Active management of the farm and its land was definitely laissez-faire by then. The field edges were overgrown, old fencelines are long hidden and soil fertility was low.
However, old aerial photos from the late 1980s show that roughly 100 acres used to be cleared and farmed in some way. Hiring an outfit to come and clear all 40 acres plus the tiling needed to access some areas is beyond our financial means at this point. So, we’ve been doing it old school with chainsaws, tractors, a 20-tonne exactor and days of hard labour (on Andrew’s and my father’s parts, I’m the one calculating how much extra diesel we can afford each month).
The Land
If you’re new here, we farm class 4 waterlogged beach sand. We have limited amounts of true topsoil, mostly sand and the fertility, while increasing, is still far from awesome. The land is both very wet and very prone to drought at the same time. This means that even if we clear spots, it’s unlikely that we can drive a tractor on it without rerouting water first. There’s so much water here that the maps can’t actually decide where it flows. All of these factors make it interesting and after five years I can safely say that traditional agronomy approaches haven’t worked well.
Parts of the property are mature forests including potentially protected maple, these will be left alone. A previous owner logged the forest around 2015 so there is not much to do there. Our sole focus is the overgrown parts of the farm covered in alders and other shrubs. Clear-cutting an entire forest is not something I support or would even suggest. The forest and the wetlands within it here are an important part of the ecosystem.
We’re only interested in the 40 acres of oovergrown fields that are either bone dry or underwater depending on the month. Solution? Random but strategic tiling and finding old fences to follow (sidenote, anyone know where to get rid of barbwire?). We compared the old maps to more recent images and set about making more consistent fields and clearing back to the old fences.
It Ain’t Easy
This solution to finding more land is not easy. It’s entertaining at times, as playing around with an excavator is definitely fun. However, it’s taken all summer to clear 6 acres of land. The trenches for the tilings collapsed as quickly as they were dug out since sand is not a very stable material. We do have enough firewood to heat a village for a year.
It will take up to 2 years to get a reliable forage stand from the newly cleared areas but they did get seeded this fall and the grass is slowly starting to appear. It takes time, patience and sweat but we’re already on this land so might as well try to make the corners even and reduce the number of wet spots we drive around. And it sure beats adding more debt.
Back from Haitus
Thanks for reading! It’s been a bit of a wild late summer/fall here. We lambed out (still are) a bunch of ewes, battled some serious problems in the feedlot among other things. I may write about what happened at a later date but for now, thank you for your continued support!
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/95-640-x/2011001/p1/p1-01-eng.htm
We do the same thing about only a acre a year, with some ditching ever year