30 It’s Farming. And It’s Better. Better Farming | February 2024 UNPu tCrLiOeSnEt L o s s hockey team, and he is treasurer for the local figure skating club. He also stays involved with associations, working to build the collaboration opportunities that he values in the agriculture industry. He recently shared a presentation about greenhouse gas reductions in agriculture through Ontario Soil Network, promotes OSCIA materials, and hosts webinars. Norm’s passion for agriculture and improving the land is shared through his dedication to learning and teaching. What is your favourite thing about being a farmer? My favourite thing is the diversity of opportunities that present themselves. On an acre of land, you can do a thousand different things. There’s no redundancy or repetition; every cycle is different. There is never a dull moment, and there is always something challenging you. The most stimulating thing for me on a day-to-day basis is how it’s never the same. What’s your crop rotation? We rotate four crops: Two cereals, corn, and soybeans. The rotation would be corn, followed by soybeans, followed by oats or barley, followed by wheat. That’s changed recently. For 35 years or so, we had a two-crop rotation to support the hog business, but we reintroduced cereals in 2015. One reason for reintroducing cereals was to spread out the workload, but it was also for cover cropping and getting additional rotations in. How do you measure success? By everybody’s happiness. If everybody is happy, it’s all going right. As an entrepreneur, there’s a profit aspect to success, but it’s also profitability balanced with soil health. So, we look for the benefits of practices over time, and those are the metrics we use to determine if we are successful. Every time we can minimize crop inputs – fertilizer or herbicides – and still improve crops would be considered a success. What has your biggest challenge been in farming? I’m very frustrated by the length of the cycles. It takes at least a year to validate a new practice or best-management practice or new product, and even within that year cycle, there are so many factors that can skew the results of that attempt – mostly weather-related. For me, being a fast-paced entrepreneur – that has been the most frustrating thing. In agriculture, you have to do everything right and really have to repeat that all over again to see if the practice is beneficial financially or ecologically. How has diversification changed your operation? It has changed a lot over time. The farm started off generations ago as a 100-acre homestead, and then got specialized when my in-laws were in the hog industry. After a while we were trending to more diversified farming again. We are limited by our land base; we can’t expand, and we are at the capaciThe farm started off generations ago as a 100-acre homestead. Norm Lamothe photo
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