Better Farming - October 2016

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Better Farming October 2016 Farm News First > 31
UP CLOSE Brenda LammensUPCLOSE Kate Procter
by MARY BAXTER
In 2010, as Ontario’s pork industry
continued a slide begun during the
2007 recession, Kate Procter and
her father, George, sold the family’s pig
genetics business. The Procters grow
corn, soybeans and wheat in Morris-
Turnberry, Huron County where they
also maintain a herd of 30 purebred
short horn cows. As well, they farm
cash crops in Chatham-Kent.
Selling the genetics business was
the type of hard, letting-go decision
farmers sometimes have to make. “My
dad had been working on the genetics
since the 1960s, and we were export-
ing those genetics around the world,”
Kate Procter says.
Procter, 47, had spent all of her
farm career managing livestock.
Moving to cash crops operations
presented an immense learning curve.
Learning and applying her knowl-
edge both to farm operations and
community, however, is second
nature for Procter. She holds a .
in agricultural resource management
and a master’s degree in rural plan-
ning and development, both from the
University of Guelph. She writes
about farming and rural matters
(including for this publication in the
past). She tackles planning projects
such as the recent development of the
Healthy Rural Lens for Huron policy
decision-making tool.
Such passion for ongoing profes-
sional development helps her grapple
with farming’s diverse facets. “I think
this is what the general public has no
idea of – how complex farming really
is, and how many different areas or
other aspects of life that might be
quite unrelated that you have to know
about,” she says.
The transition from barn to field
When you’ve spent your farming career specializing in one type of product,
shifting to another one can be like learning how to farm all over again.
Just ask Huron County farmer Kate Procter.
She remembers two years ago
when she had to tackle a new grain
dryer that wasn’t working. It was
November. “It felt like it was minus
20 C, and the wind was just howling.
I’ve never been so cold in my life
running back and forth between the
dryer and the shop, trying to figure
out why it wasn’t working.” Today, she
knows the piece of equipment inside
and out, she says.
Procter credits three mentors for
her successful transition from barn to
field: her parents, George and Eliza-
beth, and Ken Procter (a fourth
cousin and also a farmer) who has
Kate Procter