YOUNG FARMER
can’t control
the weather
But with a Cash Advance from
CCGA you can control when to
market your crop.
More cash flow means less pressure to sell
and more control to execute your marketing
plan, allowing you to sell at the best time for
the best price.
Call 1-866-745-2256 or visit ccga.ca/cash.
45
$100k
commodities
interest free
$400k
blended interest
rate below prime
In 1996, instead of renovating the barn and perhaps
expanding the dairy side, Martin divested his dairy cattle
and quota and used the money to buy land that came available
to buy.
Today, the operation has 600 mature mother cows, which
includes 550 Angus-Limousin crosses and 50 Limousin cows.
“Angus are for the most part easier cows to keep over the
winter; they’re lower maintenance and smaller cows, and need
a little bit less feed,” said Jamie, adding Limousins “give us
more flexibility in the calves, a little more muscle and length.”
The Manitoba Angus Association selected Keen Grain
and Livestock as its Commercial Producer for 2013.
The operation also has a 2,000-plus head feedlot.
“Dad’s always been feeding cattle since the early ’90s, and
just slowly grew it,” said Jamie, noting recent additional penning
expanded the feedlot from 1,400 head to about 2,000.
On the field production side, the farm consists of about
4,000 cropping acres that include canola, soybeans, oats,
wheat, barley and a lot of corn, as well as approximately 1,500
acres committed to pasture.
“Some of it is hay that we graze the second growth on, but
around half our herd goes to the local community pasture,
Woodlands Community Pasture.”
Foreign workers and experiences abroad have added an
international flavour to the operation.
The farm’s offered a training program over the last eight
or nine years that sees workers from outside Canada come in
for a six to eight-month period, while two Keens, Jamie and
Marci, experienced a whole new side to farming during work
trips in Australia.
Back in 2006, Jamie found himself on the western side of
the land down under at a sheep and 8,000-acre grain farm. It
all came about when he and three other friends got together
one night and started calling some numbers they found in a
farm publication or two, and ended up making work contacts.
“We all left at the same time, but when we got there, we
all went our different directions. And then we met up after our
work was done and did a little travelling,” Jamie remembered.
If there were any similarities between Australia and
home, it was the heat there versus the hot, dry weather this
year, he says.
“It was almost like harvesting in Australia this year,” he
said with a chuckle.
Jamie doesn’t expect Australia to be his last faraway
destination as he also aspires to observe corn and soybean
production in South America, and perhaps to check out
European farming. FV
On the field production side,
the farm consists of about 4,000
cropping acres that include
canola, soybeans, oats, wheat,
barley and a lot of corn, as
well as approximately 1,500
acres committed to pasture.
24 § Manitoba Farmers’ Voice § Winter 2019
/cash
/cash
