Five decades of progress, three generations of pride
Over the past 53 years, this Ottawa-region family has moved from agricultural startup to one of the industry’s top dairy producers.
When Bill Schouten emigrated from Holland in the early 1950s, his dream was to become a successful dairy producer in Canada. Today, the word successful doesn’t begin to describe what the family has achieved since Schouten purchased a 100-acre farm in North Gower, Ont. in 1955.
Now operating just inside the municipal limits of the city of Ottawa, Schouten Corner View Farms milks 520 cows and crops 3,500 acres. Bill Schouten died in 2001, but his legacy lives on in the continued progress of the business he began.
How did the Schoutens grow from a startup in 1955 to one of the industry’s leading lights in 2008? Bill’s son Rick Schouten says the family was focused on getting bigger and better.
“We always felt, and our father felt, that land is the first thing you need in order to expand,” he says. “We felt that if we wanted to expand, it was important to plow all the profits back into the business and not take huge dividends. We never took that much out and we had a modest lifestyle, because our mindset was that we wanted to grow.”
Three major expansions
In 1972, as a new RBC Royal Bank client, the Schouten family upgraded from a tie-stall operation of 60 cows to a free-stall set-up that could handle up to 150 cows. They built a new barn in 1991 to accommodate their growing herd and added a further 150 cows in 2007.
All these expansions were fuelled by the ability to acquire land. Still, buying postcard-perfect farms was never in the Schoutens’ game plan. Perhaps because Bill had grown up in a small country with much of its farmland below sea level, they saw the potential of land
that others weren’t keen to buy.
“We were not afraid to buy land that needs a lot of work,” says Rick. “About 95 per cent of the land we purchased was pretty scruffy; in fact, some of it had never been farmed before.
“We knew that the expenses associated with improving the land for agriculture – drainage, for example – are 100 per cent
deductible, so expanding on this land base was good for our bottom line, too.”
Three partners, distinct duties
For much of its history, Schouten Corner View Farms has operated with a threepartner structure. First it was Bill and two of his three sons, Ed and John. In later years, the partners were Rick, Ed and John. John is now retired. Today it’s brothers Rick and Ed, and Ed’s son Chris. While it’s all hands on deck when crops are being planted or harvested, the three partners also specialize. Rick
handles accounting and most maintenance, Ed manages quota holdings and legal issues surrounding land deals and helps Chris, who is in charge of dairy operations.
Working closely with seven employees, most of them long-term contributors, this structure allows the partners to tap their individual strengths and interests.
“Every farmer has jobs that they don’t like to do,” says Rick. “We attribute a lot of our success to the fact that we can specialize a lot and not have to concentrate on every area of the farm.”
Rick Schouten’s own passion is equipment. His mechanical and electrical skills have allowed him to develop or modify several pieces of equipment, most notably a 16-row corn planter and air cart configuration. This earned him recognition from the Ontario Innovative
Farmers Association as 2008’s Innovative Farmer of the Year.
Less milking, more managing
If the past is any indication, the Schoutens might be ready for another expansion in just a few years. Rick Schouten believes two factors make it more likely they’ll stand pat: the rising cost of land and complications of farming within a major urban area. Rather,
they’ll focus on improving revenue from assets they have today. Since 2007, most of their milk has been sold into the kosher market, earning an extra penny per litre. They also own an interest in a co-operative milk trucking operation.
Two energy-related ventures are on the drawing board: leasing land for wind turbines and installing an anaerobic digester to turn herd waste into electricity for the grid and for their own use.
The management evolution of Bill Schouten’s sons and grandson is not unlike that taking place on farms across the country. As farm size increases, with technology playing a major role, there’s less time available for landowners to do the actual farming. Rick, Ed and Chris Schouten expect to be managing more and farming less.
Says Rick Schouten: “We are milking 18 to 19 hours per day, and nobody could physically do all that. Lots of farmers think they have to do everything by themselves, but once you learn that other people can do a good job, you accept that and life moves on. Instead
of growing, as we have for 30 years, we’ll just focus on doing a better job with what we have.”
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