Farmsitting Service helping Farmers

By: AgriConnect Corporation  30/09/2008
Keywords: Cattle, farmer, farm hands

Farm-sitters give Prairie farmers a chance for some much-needed time away

Module body Sun Jul 13, 2008 1:24 PM By Jennifer Graham, The Canadian Press

REGINA - For most people going on vacation means locking the door, stopping a newspaper subscription and asking the neighbour across the street to keep an eye on the place. But farmers know it's not that easy. Someone needs to tend the crops, feed the livestock and keep the farm running. Vacations often fall by the wayside. "I just don't lock up my house and go," said Lucille Gleddie, who lives just outside Red Deer, Alta. Gleddie has only a handful of sheep but they still need to be looked after by someone who knows what they are doing. She also has a barn, other sheds, and a water system that need attention. "It's not easy to go away," she said. "For a long time I just didn't go." But recently Gleddie hit the highway for a road trip in the southern United States, her first worry-free vacation in about seven years. She went because she found a farm-sitter - like a house-sitter but on a bigger scale.

The farm-sitting service, launched by a company called AgriConnect, cropped up in Alberta last fall. It links landowners who need help with people who are willing to lend a hand, whether it's to allow farmers vacation time or to provide coverage during an illness or injury. It's "almost a dating service for farmers," said company founder Frank Campbell. "We'll put them together but it's up to them to get along and make the deal." The service is free to the landowners and farm-sitters. Compensation for the farm-sitting is worked out between the two parties. That could be monetary compensation, bartering or trading of services. "Maybe you can butcher a cow and give them half," suggests AgriConnect's website.

The site relies on sponsors, including companies and producer groups, for funding. The idea for farm-sitting came to Campbell about three years ago. He was camping with a friend who would get up early every morning and drive 100 kilometres round trip to do chores on the farm. "I was giving him a hard time, saying 'isn't there somebody who can take care of your farm for one weekend so you can relax?' and he said, 'no, there isn't,' " explained Campbell. "His dad was too old and his brother was too busy with his own farm."

After doing a little research, Campbell found a similar model operating in Australia but nothing like it in Canada. He quit a six-figure job in the oil sector to start AgriConnect. This June, the company made its debut in Saskatchewan and Campbell hopes to have the service available across Western Canada within two years. There are more than 100 sitters in the company's database now, mostly in Alberta. "We've got even some as far away as Ontario," said Campbell. "If we can find matches for them, they want to jump in the motorhome and travel across Canada looking after farms so people can get a break. They're retired farmers - one couple is - and they know how hard it was to get away from the farm." Another Ontario man, who grew up on a farm, wants his city kids to experience that way of life, said Campbell.

Others have been helping out their neighbours for years and say farm-sitting seemed like a natural next step. "Born and raised on the farm, it was just kind of second nature to help out people," said Tom Blunden, who signed up to be a sitter after seeing an advertisement in a Red Deer, Alta., newspaper. "People that have been born and raised or actually worked around the farms, that's the people you need to help out. It sets the farmer at ease."

Gleddie said she knows of a farming couple where the husband went on a holiday this year and his wife will go away next year. Someone needs to stay home with the livestock. If they knew of someone who could take care of the animals they could go on vacation together, she said. Looking back, Gleddie said the service could have really appealed to her parents. Her father was a sheep rancher who also grew grain and hay. "From the time I was about seven until 16, we never went anywhere for vacations," she said.

Keywords: Cattle, farm hands, farm sit, farm sitter, farm sitting, farmer, farming help, farm-sit, farmsitter, farm-sitter, farmsitting, farm-sitting, help on farm, inusrance coverage on farm,

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