Helping farm with the family for my entire life. I started farming officially after college.

We have a wide variety of crops on our farm this year: dry edible beans, sugarbeets, hybrid seed canola, lentils, wheat (durum, spring wheat, and winter wheat), and mustard.

My family moved from the Netherlands in 1978. My father came from a small farm in the northeast of Holland in the province of Groningen. The farm in Holland was bought up by the government for roads, and southern Alberta's irrigation system let my father farm some of the same crops he had growing up for a lot less. My mother's father had known people in the area that had moved from the Netherlands and the next thing they knew they were on a plane and farming in Alberta. So I guess that makes me a second-generational farmer in Canada.

I grew up farming in my spare time with my brother and my dad, and when I was finishing up high school and was picking courses for college I knew that I had an opportunity on the farm that not everyone had, so the next thing I knew I too was involved in the family farm.

We grow beans on our farm because they are a great rotation in our crops, and they grow very well in my area. Beans love the heat and we happen to be in one of the sunniest spots in Canada. Also, how could I not grow beans when the town I live in is known for being the “Bean Capital of Western Canada”?

Bean growers face many of the same challenges as other crops, but some of the issues that stand out are that the beans are more susceptible to molds and other diseases than your typical crop. Controlling weeds with a big rotation can also be a bit tricky. If you miss those weeds they become hard to control, which causes issues during harvest

I love beans, and so does my family. Beans are high in fibre and protein making them a great main dish or even a side dish to any meal.

I currently farm with my parents and my brother.

We are always trying to stay on top of being a modern sustainable farm. We don’t necessarily look to fit the term sustainable, but it's simply what we do and have always done. We are always trying to keep our irrigation systems up to date with the most modern equipment making them less energy demanding and in some cases also adding solar sites to help elevate the demand. Our equipment is being updated often helping us to be more efficient and have less and less waste, whether it be seeding, spraying, or harvesting.

On my farm, we do not have any workers. We are a small family operation. The only time we have hired labour is during the Sugarbeet harvest. Other labour included would simply help from the nephews and nieces that I have.

Bean farming will continue to grow and I don’t think I need to “hope to see” much as I currently already see a lot of demand and expansion possibilities in the bean industry here in Alberta. New bean types, and varieties, are continually coming down the pipeline that help the farmer in many ways. Currently, we are seeing yellow beans in our area, which just a few years ago was not possible with the varieties. One thing I would like to see is more local beans sold in some of the big market stores here in Alberta, and I also never think competition in Alberta among beans is never a bad thing. More vendors, customers, and consumers of Alberta-grown beans are never a bad thing.

The thing I like the most about growing beans is telling people in other areas that I grow dry edible beans, and the look of confusion they get because they have never met a bean farmer! :-)

I grew up on a farm and have been farming since 1989.

Seed canola, flax, malt barley, milling wheat, mustard occasionally, yellow beans, great northern beans, and pinto beans.

My Grandpa came from Holland and started farming in the 1950’s. My parents went on to farm through the 1980’s and then my brother and I farmed together from 1989 until 2010. There have been some variations in the farm through the years and since 2010, the farm was consolidated in the area around Enchant and my kids are on their way to taking over some of the farm and the management.

Because it’s fun! I grew up on a farm and I’ve always liked being on the farm and being around the chickens, beef, grains, and forages. It’s a challenge, always something new, so I’ve never been bored farming. It’s doing something worthwhile. You’re growing food, and especially beans, they leave my hands, get cleaned a little bit, and they end up in the consumer's hands, I mean, that’s pretty direct.

The farm is in a high price land area, and we have the benefit of irrigation coming off the Rocky Mountains, so we choose dry beans and seed canola as the 2 anchors that we fix our farm around as these are crops that are good for our land and pay some bills! Beans give us a chance to improve our soil and break the disease cycle for some of the other crops through a 3-year crop rotation.

With farming, you’re always facing the weather. Beans are especially fragile; they don’t like frost or wind; they don’t like to be too wet or too dry and there are always bugs that want to eat them! The farm is also located in a high wind area, so we have to consider how do we keep the land from blowing away after harvesting a bean crop? Our solution is to use strip tilling (a minimal tilling method that leaves the crop roots behind) and then working with cover crops after this tilling is done.

Yes! My wife and my mother keep telling me which types of beans I have to grow because they want a couple bags of beans for family meals. My wife makes these really delicious bean burritos for all of us out in the field at harvest time. Beans are a pretty big part of our family meals.

Yes, all my children are involved and will take over the farming operation when I retire. One daughter is bookkeeping, irrigation management, and some combining. My other daughter is more on the marketing side of things. My son is the general manager and looks after the sprayer/herbicide/pesticide application.

Crop rotation; variable rate irrigation which reduces our water consumption, and it gives the plant more of what it wants; strip-tillage; timely use of fertilizer to give the beans a good start and to give them a boost in the season; cover crops with barley and rye after the bean crop to reduce soil erosion.

Canada has land, water, sunshine, and hardworking, innovative people. So, I think we have a great future as a food provider to many parts of the world along with Canadians. I see agriculture as a great opportunity to take the sunshine and water, technology, and some hard work and turn it into food. It’s just a magical thing!

I see smaller equipment, smarter equipment, moving away from some of the herbicide/pesticides, and using robotic/mechanical means of dealing with weeds and pests without working up the land and making it blow away. I think that we will have more and more demand for transparency from customers/consumers on how sustainable are we, how are we taking care of the pollinators/bees and the soil health, how are we keeping our GHG emissions down, are we keeping the food safe? We have to show it and we have to prove it and we have to be ready to do this. Also, we need to create more opportunities to talk about pulses like beans because beans are one of the food solutions in the world.

Farming gives me a lot of satisfaction and you’re always solving some sort of puzzle or trying to improve something. Farming is about using the gifts that you have, that you’ve been given and the skills and the opportunities that are there. It’s just been a great place to have grown up on a farm, to have raised kids on a farm and you can see what you’ve done at the end of the day. Put something in the ground, you’ve seen something grow, you’ve harvested something, you’ve delivered something.

All my life!

Wheat, Corn, Navy and Pinto Beans

I am the 5^th generation to farm. I farm with my dad (Jim) and brother (William). My dad’s family homesteaded here in 1899 and my Mom’s family in 1888, both in the Portage Area.

I was raised on the farm and wouldn’t want to do anything else.

Beans are our bread and butter. Our #1 goal on the farm is to own/operate the best soils. Beans need to be and perform best on those soils, so our cropping philosophy matches our investment philosophy in that regard.

Beans are one of the most intensively managed crops. Weed management can be a challenge. Beans are also very sensitive to excess water, so land management is key – that might mean surface drainage or installing tile drainage.

Yes, we enjoy consuming beans. They provide balanced nutrients in themselves.

We use cover crops on land that is more sensitive to wind erosion. We believe that tile drainage is an important sustainability practice to reduce/prevent salinity on our farm. Beans also play a big role in sustainability - their water use is low relative to other crops, and they also require less nitrogen fertilizer.

We are proud of our great team. Good people are also what makes our farm sustainable, and what makes farming a great experience.

hope beans continue to be a crop with growing demand from around the world. In an environment of high food inflation, I hope consumers see beans as a way of making their grocery dollars go further, without sacrificing a balanced diet for themselves and their families.

Harvesting beans is very fulfilling. It’s a beautiful time of the year (most years) and our crew thrives under the pressure of getting the job done.