Finding his way: The struggles with building a farm

Aaron Beswick
July 16, 2020
The Chronicle Herald

SYLVESTER, N.S. — Derek Gladney was a half-million dollars in debt on Thursday and making hay.

“It don’t bother me any,” said the 29-year-old.

“As long as you’re making enough money to cover the bills, what’s the difference?”

He’s not really making enough raising cattle to pay the bills.

His day job as a carpenter pays his living expenses and subsidizes his farming habit.

Hand-wringing over food insecurity isn’t new.

Despite being a largely rural province, Nova Scotia imports about 96 per cent of the beef it consumes.

Fifty-six per cent of our farmers were over 55 in 2016 (latest available figure from Statistics Canada) and getting older.

When the province locked down in March, Nova Scotians learned the food they needed was largely in trucks many state, national and provincial borders away.

Next, we heard about outbreaks of COVID-19 shutting down (temporarily) the small handful of federally inspected abattoirs across Canada.

If a goal is to have more beef raised, killed and cut in Nova Scotia then a field in Sylvester, Pictou County, is a good place to start.

The full article can found on The Chronicle Herald website.