Agricultural Policy Framework Newsletter - September 2007
Keeping the Family Farm: CASS Makes All the Difference
Most farmers would rather farm than work at anything else, and they would also prefer to do it full time. But all too often, their farm income alone isn’t enough to support their families, and off-farm work has become a necessary part of their lives.
That was the situation facing Brian Kingman of Abbotsford, B.C. “Our family operated a dairy farm till 1993,” he says. “My grandfather owned it, and when he retired, he cashed in the quota. My family and I took over the land and we started breeding beef cattle, although in a small way. My grandfather passed on in 2000 and we decided to expand the beef operation. That’s how I first got into machinery operation—digging a manure pit, excavating for our watercourses and so on.”
Things looked reasonably good for the farm, but then BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) hit. “To keep going,” recalls Kingman, “we were selling the young stock and holding on to the mothers. But we needed something else, and I thought maybe the government would have grants to help me get my ticket as a machinery operator. I looked around and found an operator training school, and at that point I found out about CASS.”
CASS is the Canadian Agricultural Skills Service, provided through the Agricultural Policy Framework. It is intended to help farmers gain new skills and knowledge that they can use to develop their farms or to prepare for off-farm work.
The service will fund tuition, books, course materials and other expenses such as travel costs for eligible applicants. Kingman applied to CASS and was approved for the course he wanted, including travel costs.
“It was a two-month course,” he says, “and I learned to operate an excavator. I now have my Class C license and my union ticket, and I hope that next year I’ll be able to get my Class A license. With all the construction going on in B.C. for the 2010 Olympics, they need a lot of machinery operators, and with a Class A license I’ll be able to work less and make more. That means I can put more time and energy into the farm.”
For Kingman, the farm is what it’s all about. He and his family are building a new herd and now have 80 head of cattle on their own 80 acres, plus another 20 rented acres. CASS, in his opinion, has made it possible for him to have a future in farming, even if it’s only part time for now, and it’s also given him a valuable skill he can use in the workforce whenever he needs it.
“For me and my family,” Kingman says, “CASS made all the difference. If it wasn’t for CASS, we’d have lost the farm. So I’d recommend it, for sure.”
For more information about CASS, please call Service Canada toll free at 1-800-662-6232, or visit www.agr.gc.ca/cass.
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