Southwestern Ontario is a prosperous agricultural region, but one that is changing rapidly.
Farmers across the region and across the country are getting older and some are looking to get out of the farming business entirely.
During the 1990s, commodity prices fell, making it harder for farmers to make a living.
Many parents were actually telling their kids to leave the farm and not to return. However, in the last few years, that's been changing.
After coming home from a full-time job each day at the agriculture company Haggerty Creek in Bothwell, Tom Jobson, 22, begins the job he loves at his farm in Glencoe.
He says the long hours he spends farming are worth it.
“I love it. I love getting my hands dirty and being out here.”
Jobson is one of the many young people getting into farming.
He recently graduated from the Ontario Agricultural College at the University of Guelph.
Applications to the Bachelor of Science program were up 35 per cent this fall, following a decade of declining enrollment.
Officials at the university say farming has become lucrative again, which is why Rene Van Acker, the dean of external affairs at the Ontario Agricultural College, is encouraged.
“It is fundamentally important. Agriculture is not an option; it's an absolute necessity. We need succession.
According to Statistics Canada, almost half of Canadian farmers are 55 or older.
And it can be a challenge for those young people just starting out.
“I’m not sure those students ever gave up that desire to go back to the farm,” Van Acker says.
But getting into farming isn’t easy, especially when the price of land in the province has doubled in the last five years.
Like many young farmers, Jobson inherited his first farm. He just bought his second, not far away.
He has fallen in love with farming.
“I have a blast: Getting up in the morning; getting to the job. Coming home and then working.”
That’s good news as Jobson is in an industry that desperately needs him.
