19 Story Idea? Contact Paul.Nolan@Farms.com Better Pork | April 2024 UP CLOSE With some pork producers, a new sow barn might be big business news. If you ask TJ and Jocelyn Klopp, however, it’s business as usual. At their farm near Zurich, Ont., they tend to 3,600 sows in the main barn, another 350 in a second facility where they produce their own breeding stock, 8,500 acres of cash crops and a 60-head Angus cow-calf herd. While TJ is a seventh-generation farmer, Jocelyn was focused on sports management before they were marrried in 2012, earning a degree in human kinetics. “I’ve always been focused on expansion,” says TJ. “When I returned to the farm in 2005 with my diploma in agriculture, I started to grow the business, building up the cash-crop side, and constructing a new beef barn when my parents’ pig barn burnt.” In 2016, Jocelyn quit her management job at a nursing home and started on the farm full-time. Work on the new sow barn commenced in 2022, which replaced the two rented sow barns that TJ and Jocelyn started with when they got back into pigs six years prior. The first sow was farrowed exactly one year from the first day of moving dirt for the new barn. Between work and family – the Klopp children are 9 (Brinley), 8 (Carson), and 4 (Andie) – the parents have their hands full. But they wouldn’t want it any other way. What are your roles on the farm? TJ: I’m focused on the logistics of the operation, dealing with where the pigs go, what’s happening with the land, and overseeing workers in the shop. Jocelyn has the harder job of dealing with all the paperwork while also acting as our human resource person and accountant. My dad has stepped back from the day-to-day decision-making, yet he still tends to the cattle every day when he’s not serving as Mayor of Bluewater. How many people do you employ? TJ: Between the land and the barns, we have 20 staff members. Describe your office or workshop. TJ: We have two offices at the back of the house. Jocelyn uses the one with the closed door for privacy, and the other is more of a reception area. Attached to that in our garage is a walk-in freezer where we store pork and beef that we sell at local farmers' markets and here at the farm. What's always on your desk? TJ: A pile of papers! Although we are very electronic, the papers manage to accumulate somehow. Messy or neat? Jocelyn: It depends on the day. I try to keep things tidy, but if I’m in the middle of a job and I have to go pick up ‘ALWAYS FOCUSED ON EXPANSION’ For this couple, the status quo is a no-go. By Geoff Geddes Jocelyn and TJ Klopp in their loose housing pen. Klopp Family photo
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