29 The Business of Ontario Agriculture Better Farming | June/July 2024 Windsor and he sold the excess beyond what was needed on the farm. He didn’t really want that side business, so it gave me an opportunity to buy it. “It’s a second income, but also manages our input costs and avoids the fluctuations of the marketplace.” The Buurmas have run the business for 12 years and the product is now used on more than 207,580 acres across Ontario. David believes that it’s important to have an additional income stream in farming. “The problem is, farming is so seasonal. I think if you want to be successful in farming it’s important that you have multiple streams of income. Some people clean and sell seed or equipment. We have our fertilizer business.” David’s role on the farm has changed the past few years and now he is largely responsible for the fertilizer business. The team that supports their farming division continues to get the fieldwork done. “I was never good at the management side. Roger is stronger with employees than I am. I do the high-level stuff and the grunt work, like running trucks, but can’t do the management aspect in between,” admits David. Finding the right people for the right roles is a big part of building a great team. “While we love our equipment and getting our hands dirty, our responsibilities have grown with the business, which is why we don’t get to do a lot of the fun stuff. We have an operations manager and employees who love the work and are passionate about it, so if we’re lucky we get to step in occasionally. “We believe it’s important to understand your employees. We have found what works best for us is giving people accountability, letting them own it, and promoting from within the organization. We have also found that with personal development courses and coaching, we give our employees an opportunity to learn new things they’re interested in, which allows them to work in different roles – which means there’s work year-round for everyone and we get to pay them well.” In addition to finding new ways to develop and improve their team, the Buurma brothers continue to look to improve the profitability of their crop land. “We were on a three-crop rotation with IP soybeans, wheat, and corn. Now we are changing the herbicide program to add canola into the rotation, so we’ll be up to a four-crop rotation within the year,” says David. They are also looking at other economical additions to their rotation, like rye, and new organic-based fertilizer sources that are more effective. What are you most proud of on your farm? It would be our team. We have focused a lot of energy and time on putting the right team around us. While it’s a work in progress, we have found good people who understand the business and fit in well with our culture. What is your favourite farming task? Driving the transport and cultivating. What is a goal you have for your farm? To become more efficient and to be clear on our expenses and our income. We’d like to start managing that as best as possible. Having goals that we can measure can be difficult when everything is always moving in terms of commodity prices and input costs. Another goal is to continue growing our team. What has your biggest challenge been in farming? I would say we do struggle with growth on the farm and with municipalities when getting permits to grow infrastructure. As you grow the business to a larger size there are bigger UP CLOSE
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