Better Farming - November 2016

31 / 72

Better Farming November 2016 FarmNews First > 31
Farming from scratch
Twenty-eight years ago, Vince and
Heather Stutzki walked into a
bank and asked for a loan to buy
a hilly 200-acre farm south of Paisley in
Bruce County. The couple had met at
the University of Guelph where Vince
studied agriculture (“I was a cropper,”
he says) and Heather focused on
geography and environmental studies.
Neither came from farm backgrounds.
Vince hailed from Montreal and
Heather from Mississauga.
Ever since he was five and his
family vacationed in Vermont on
dairy farms, Vince had set his sights
on farming. When they approached
the bank, “we had no equipment, we
had no experience; we had a lot of
ambition,” says Vince. They left with
a loan at 16 per cent interest.
They began with crop production;
Vince worked off-farm as a builder.
In the second year towards winter,
someone asked to winter sheep in
the couple’s empty barn. “The next
thing you know, 10 sheep and a ram
show up,” says Vince.
Today, the flock numbers 900
ewes and the Stutzkis implement five
lambing periods a year. They’re busy.
“To put it in a cropper’s perspective,”
says Vince, “it would be when you
pull out your corn planter to plant
your corn, you’re also pulling your
combine out to combine corn; you’re
also pulling the sprayer out to spray
your corn. All in different fields; all
at the same time.”
Large flocks are scarce in Ontario;
the Stutzkis suspect the complexity
of such an operation and the work
involved discourage others from
by MARY BAXTER
Vince and Heather Stutzki have learned that a passion for the business
is crucial for surviving agriculture’s inevitable ups and downs.
UP CLOSE Brenda LammensUPCLOSE Vince & Heather Stutzki
Heather and Vince Stutzki